Hi NightStrike, > Is there a difference in the speed of the resulting program when everything is split into many object files instead of being combined into a single main.c ...? There may be a negative small performance impact in a resulting program that is split into many object files instead of being combined into a single main.c. (My expectation is that, overall, the performance impact will be negligible if it is even measurable.) There may be a few interoperating routines that are strongly negatively impacted by being split into many object files instead of being combined into a single object file. (My expectation for these particular routines is that they should be heavily optimized, perhaps even being rewritten in lovingly handcrafted assembly -- assuming assembly chops are superior to the optimizing compiler's amazing optimizations.) If not re-written in hand coded assembly, at least having performance critical routines' code hand-tweaked to allow the GCC optimizer to do it's best to optimize it would be prudent (including using inline functions, and avoiding the anti-patterns that cripple optimization). The way to assess those routines is through profiling. GCC does not do "holistic" optimizations (yet). In contrast, LLVM does "holistic" optimizations. >... or is the resulting binary identical bit for bit? No, the resulting binary is not identical bit-for-bit. It should be identical output for identical input. (Barring non-compliant or undefined behavior code, of course.) HTH, --Eljay
