How to use * .o and * .d files?

Question

I am trying to run examples using a library. The library documentation says that I need to copy all the files to my directory, and not the type make . After that, I need to go to the Debug folder and enter ./lib_examples to run the examples.

I followed this sequence. As a result, I have many *.o and *.d in the "Debug" subdirectory. Among them are the files lib_examples.o and lib_examples.h . But there is no lib_example file that I have to execute.

Does anyone know what was supposed to happen, and where it went wrong. Do I have to take another step to be able to use *.o and *.d ?

Answer 1

The ".o" files are probably intermediate files from which the actual executable program should be created.

The ".d" files are probably the internal state used by the makefile, only important if you make changes to the source code and then rebuild it in stages.

If after running make you only have these files, but not an executable file, then the most likely explanation is that make detected an error while creating the executable file. If so, then the last few lines of output generated by make should tell you more.