C source code, Watcom Compiler and EMU8086

Question

How can I get the Watcom compiler (the forked version 2.0 beta which runs on 64-bit hosts) to output 8086 assembly source code in an ASM file? Running wcc -0 main.c from the command prompt produces just the OBJ file.

As a side note, my main task it to convert C source code to assembly code that I can run with EMU8086 (instead of writing the actual assembly code). I am hoping the ASM file generated by Watcom would run without modification (copy-paste) in EMU8086.

Answer 1

I don't see a way to get the Watcom compiler to generate an ASM file directly, but you should be able to use the Watcom disassembler (wdis) to generate an assembly listing from the object file produced by the compiler. In this case you would run something like wdis -l main to read main.obj and produce a file named main.lst that contains an assembly language listing.

If you recompile main.c with a -d1 or -d2 option to place extra debugging data into the main.obj file then you can use the disassembler's -s option to have the assembly language listing interpersed with comments showing the original C source from main.c.

To get the disassembler to omit descriptive comments and just give a plain disassembly that should be acceptable as a source file for the Watcom assembler, give the -a option to the disassembler. This option will also causes the disassembler's output to be written into main.asm rather than main.lst. Sorry, I have no idea whether this output will be directly consumable by EMU8086.

This is all discussed in the Open Watcom C/C++ User Guide and C/C++ Tools User Guide linked from http://www.openwatcom.com/doc.php