Sams Teach Yourself C in 21 Days

Advanced Compiler Use 597

21

Module Components ....................................................................................

As you can see, the mechanics of compiling and linking a multiple-module program are

quite simple. The only real question is what to put in each file. This section gives you

some general guidelines.

The secondary module should contain general utility functions—that is, functions that

you might want to use in other programs. A common practice is to create one secondary

module for each type of function—for example, keyboard.c for your keyboard functions,

screen.c for your screen display functions, and so on. To compile and link more than two

modules, list all source files on the command line:

tcc mainmod.c screen.c keyboard.c

The main module should contain main(), of course, and any other functions that are pro-

gram-specific (meaning that they have no general utility).

There is usually one header file for each secondary module. Each file has the same name

as the associated module, with an .h extension. In the header file, put

• Prototypes for functions in the secondary module


• #definedirectives for any symbolic constants and macros used in the module


• Definitions of any structures or external variables used in the module

FIGURE21.3

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