Q.Briefly explain the steps used in creating a program.

Creating an 8051 program means passing the source code through a chain of tools — editor, assembler, linker and object-to-hex converter — each producing a file used by the next. …

[!TLDR]

A program is created in four tool stages — editor → assembler → linker → OH converter — producing .asm, then .obj/.lst, then .abs, and finally the .hex file ready to burn into ROM.

Creating an 8051 program is a sequence of steps, each carried out by a utility program and each producing a file for the next stage (this is the 'assembling and running an 8051 program' flow):

Step 1 — Editor: first an editor is used to type in the program. A widely used editor is the MS-DOS EDIT program (or Notepad in Windows), which comes with the operating system. The editor must be able to produce an ASCII file; the file name follows the usual DOS conventions and the source file has the extension .asm or .src depending on the assembler used.

Step 2 — Assembler: the .asm source file created in step 1 is fed to an 8051 assembler. The assembler converts the instructions into machine code. It produces an object file with extension .obj and an optional list file with extension .lst. The .lst file lists all the opcodes and addresses as well as any errors the assembler detected, so it is very useful to the programmer. …