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-c
Compile or assemble the source files, but do not link. The linking stage simply is not done. The ultimate output is in the form of an object file for each source file.
By default, the object file name for a source file is made by replacing the suffix .c, .i, .s, etc., with .o. Unrecognized input files, not requiring compilation or assembly, are ignored.
-o file
Place output in file file. This applies regardless to whatever sort of output is being produced, whether it be an executable file, an object file, an assembler file or preprocessed C code. If -o is not specified, the default is to put an executable file in a.out, the object file for source.suffix in source.o, its assembler file in source.s, a precompiled header file in source.suffix.gch, and all preprocessed C source on standard output.
More can be found in GCC Manual Page
From man gcc (section "Options Controlling the Kind of Output"):
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-c Compile or assemble the source files, but do not link. The linking stage simply is not done. The ultimate output is in the form of an object file for each source file.
By default, the object file name for a source file is made by replacing the suffix .c, .i, .s, etc., with .o.
Unrecognized input files, not requiring compilation or assembly, are ignored.
...
Try to compile your code normally as
gcc test.c
If you get default output file a.exe,then go for
gcc test.c -o test.exe
I would suggest you go through this compilation instruction :-
gcc -o test.exe test.c
I believe this code runs perfectly on your windows system.Please inform if it doesn't!
The specific history to gcc is given at the GCC Wiki. The more general point is that compilers are generally originally compiled with some other compiler until they are powerful enough to compile themselves. Alternately, it is possible to write a basic compiler that can handle a subset of your features in assembler, and build up from there. But again, this is almost never needed anymore. There are plenty of compilers available, in a variety of languages. Even when Stephen Johnson was writing pcc (one of the first C compilers), there were compilers for B available, along with many other languages. gcc had several compilers to pick from to build it originally, and RMS says he was using the Pastel compiler at least during his initial development.
Remember, there is no requirement that a C compiler be written in C. You could write it in Perl if you wanted to. There is no requirement that a compiler for a given platform be originally written on that platform (embedded systems almost always are compiled on some other system). So there are many ways to get yourself bootstrapped.
This question has some interesting subtleties related to the first instance of bootstrapping the compiler. If you were very clever, you could make use of that bootstrap to do something incredible, brilliant and terrifying.
Originally it was written in some assembly language then it began to dog food itself.