Output Files

The common output file types and case-sensitive extensions are shown in Table 3-2.

Table 1. Common Output Files
Extension	File Type	How created
`file.elf`	ELF (Executable and Linkable Format) with Dwarf debugging information	`-o` option
`.cof`	COFF (Common Object File Format)	`-gcoff` option
`.p1`	P-code file (Intermediate file)	`-c`
`.s`	Assembly file	`-S` option
`.i`	Preprocessed C file	`-E` and `-o` option

The default behavior of xc8-cc is to produce an ELF and Intel HEX output. Unless changed by the -o option (see O: Specify Output File), the base names of these files will be the project name.

This behavior can be changed by using the -gcoff option, which generate a COFF file (described in G: Produce Debugging Information Option).

The ELF/DWARF file is used by debuggers to obtain debugging information about the project and allows for more accurate debugging compared to the COFF format. Some aspects of the project’s operation might not even be available to your debugger when using COFF. The MPLAB X IDE will typically request the compiler to produce an ELF file.

The names of many output files use the same base name as the source file from which they were derived. For example the source file input.c will create an object file called input.p1 when the -c option is used.