Developing larger C programs in multiple files
Just as C programs should be divided into a number of functions
(we often say the program is modularized),
larger C programs should be divided into multiple source files.
The motivations for using multiple source files are:
- each file (often containing multiple related functions)
may perform (roughly) a single role,
- the number of unnecessary global variables can be significantly reduced,
- we may easily edit the multiple files in separate windows or tabs,
- large projects may be undertaken by multiple people each working on
a subset of the files,
- each file may be separately compiled into a distinct object file,
- small changes to one source file do not
require all other source files to be recompiled.
All object files are then linked to form a single executable program.
CITS2002 Systems Programming, Lecture 17, p3, 26th September 2023.
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CITS2002