On Wednesday, 3 May 2017 at 11:09:33 UTC, Stanislav Blinov wrote:
The source is not compiled into the executable. The source is compiled into a "object code", output into an "object file" - in this case, the .obj file. Afterwards, object files are linked by a linker (usually also taking other object files and/or libraries) to produce an executable or a library. .obj files are not needed to be redistributed, they've served their purpose when the final target executable or library has been created. But it's useful to keep them in the development environment, as usually the build environment would not spend time recompiling the code when an up-to-date object files are present.
Ohhhhhhhh... Many thanks. This cleared it for me. What happens at compile time is all magic to me still, but learning as I go.
