sulekhasweety@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi,
>
> can any one give a brief outline of the different stages in the
> execution of a C program , in terms of compilation, pre-processing,
> linking etc

No.
A C implementation can do two different things.
It can translate a C program.
It can execute a C program.

Compilation, pre-processing, linking are related to translation.

N869

5.1.1.2 Translation phases

[#1] The precedence among the syntax rules of translation is
specified by the following phases.5)

1. Physical source file multibyte characters are mapped
to the source character set (introducing new-line
characters for end-of-line indicators) if necessary.
Trigraph sequences are replaced by corresponding
single-character internal representations.

2. Each instance of a backslash character (\) immediately
followed by a new-line character is deleted, splicing
physical source lines to form logical source lines.
If, as a result, a character sequence that matches the
syntax of a universal character name is produced, the
behavior is undefined. Only the last backslash on any
physical source line shall be eligible for being part
of such a splice. A source file that is not empty
shall end in a new-line character, which shall not be
immediately preceded by a backslash character before
any such splicing takes place.

3. The source file is decomposed into preprocessing
tokens6) and sequences of white-space characters
(including comments). A source file shall not end in
a partial preprocessing token or in a partial comment.
Each comment is replaced by one space character. New-
line characters are retained. Whether each nonempty
sequence of white-space characters other than new-line
is retained or replaced by one space character is
implementation-defined.

4. Preprocessing directives are executed, macro
invocations are expanded, and _Pragma unary operator
expressions are executed. If a character sequence
that matches the syntax of a universal character name
is produced by token concatenation (6.10.3.3), the
behavior is undefined. A #include preprocessing
directive causes the named header or source file to be
processed from phase 1 through phase 4, recursively.
All preprocessing directives are then deleted.

5. Each source character set member and escape sequence |
in character constants and string literals is
converted to the corresponding member of the execution
character set; if there is no corresponding member, it
is converted to an implementation-defined member.

6. Adjacent string literal tokens are concatenated.

7. White-space characters separating tokens are no longer
significant. Each preprocessing token is converted
into a token. The resulting tokens are syntactically
and semantically analyzed and translated as a
translation unit.

8. All external object and function references are
resolved. Library components are linked to satisfy
external references to functions and objects not
defined in the current translation. All such
translator output is collected into a program image
which contains information needed for execution in its
execution environment.


--
pete