User manual
MPLAB
®
XC8 C COMPILER
USER’S GUIDE
2012 Microchip Technology Inc. DS52053B-page 71
Chapter 4. XC8 Command-line Driver
4.1 INTRODUCTION
The name of the command-line driver is xc8. XC8 can be invoked to perform all
aspects of compilation, including C code generation, assembly, and link steps. Even if
an IDE is used to assist with compilation, the IDE will ultimately call xc8.
Although the internal compiler applications can be called explicitly from the command
line, the xc8 driver is the recommended way to use the compiler as it hides the com-
plexity of all the internal applications used and provides a consistent interface for all
compilation steps.
This chapter describes the steps the driver takes during compilation, the files that the
driver can accept and produce, as well as the command-line options that control the
compiler’s operation. The relationship between these command-line options and the
controls in the MPLAB IDE Build Options
dialog is also described.
The following topics are examined in this chapter of the MPLAB XC8 C Compiler User’s
Guide:
• Invoking the Compiler
• The Compilation Sequence
• Runtime Files
• Compiler Output
• Compiler Messages
• XC8 Driver Options
• MPLAB IDE V8 Universal Toolsuite Equivalents
• MPLAB X Universal Toolsuite Equivalents