Compiler
🎯 Introduction
A compiler is a program that translates human-readable source code into machine code a computer can execute. It typically works in several stages: it parses your code to build an internal representation called an Abstract Syntax Tree (AST), performs optimizations to improve performance, and finally generates binary instructions for the target architecture. Popular compilers like GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) and Clang (part of the LLVM project) both support C, C++, and other languages. GCC is known for its maturity and wide platform support, while Clang offers modular design, faster compilation, and helpful error messages. Together, these tools power much of modern software development, from low-level system code to high-performance applications
GCC Compiler
When you run gcc main.c, GCC performs four main steps, each transforming
your code closer to an executable program: