What is Object Code in a Computer Program?
When we talk about computers, we talk about machines that run on millions of lines of code. Computer programmers write code in various languages, but all of this code has some basic features, no matter which language is being used. A program always has two sets of code, source code and object code. Source code is what is created beforehand, the language that the programmer uses to give instructions to the computer’s compiler in order to make the program run. The result of the compiler having compiling these source code instructions is called object code. The terms are intuitive, in that source code is the means to the end that is object code. In other words, the source code is the beginning, or source, of the operation and the object code is the desired result, or object, of the whole exercise. Object code is stored in files that are created by the computer’s compiler and can then become the ultimate end intended by the programmer. Once source code has been compiled into files, it can