6. Post-linker and other tools

On most platforms, you compile and link your programs, and the resulting executable is the program you run. (The GNU linker produces an executable using a library named "bfd"---hence the term "bfd executable"). On Palm OS, however, this bfd executable is not, in fact, executable: its format must be changed from bfd COFF to a .prc database file, and, for all but the most trivial programs, UI resources must be bound in.

The post-linker tools are build-prc, which reads a definition file and various resource sources to generate a Palm OS .prc file, and obj-res, which converts a bfd executable into resources. (Build-prc can now read bfd executables directly, so there is no need to use obj-res anymore, but it is still supported for backwards compatibility.) There are also multigen and stubgen, which generate various support files; and trapfilt, which decodes Palm OS trap vectors.

Other miscellaneous tools include palmdev-prep, which informs GCC of the locations of Palm OS SDKs and the like. You should run it whenever you upgrade prc-tools or install new SDKs or modify existing ones.