Adding Blank Line In Source Causes Change In Executable

From	"Morris, John M CIV NSWCDD, Q34" <john.m.morris@navy.mil>
Newsgroups	comp.compilers
Subject	Adding Blank Line In Source Causes Change In Executable
Date	2012-03-06 08:32 -0500
Organization	Compilers Central
Message-ID	<12-03-007@comp.compilers> (permalink)

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I apologize if this is a stupid question, but I have not been able to find any information on this subject. I think this question might be applicable to most compilers, but in my case I am using AdaCore's GPS development environment (which uses gcc I believe) to compile Ada programs for a 68040 processor. I am not intentionally including debug information in my builds.

I've noticed that if I add one blank line to a source file (e.g., I hit <Enter> right before the last assignment statement in the Ada file) and recompile, I get a different output/binary/executable file. (In this example, only one byte in the executable is different, and it is 1 greater than the original value. If I hit <Enter> 3 times and recompile, the byte is 3 greater than the original value.)

I assumed that blank lines in the source would have no impact on the executable, but that appears to be incorrect. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
John

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Adding Blank Line In Source Causes Change In Executable "Morris, John M CIV NSWCDD, Q34" <john.m.morris@navy.mil> - 2012-03-06 08:32 -0500
  Re: Adding Blank Line In Source Causes Change In Executable glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2012-03-06 19:51 +0000
  Re: Adding Blank Line In Source Causes Change In Executable Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com> - 2012-03-06 16:25 -0500
    Re: Adding Blank Line In Source Causes Change In Executable HOKIENERD <hokienerd@gmail.com> - 2012-03-12 07:36 -0700
      Re: Adding Blank Line In Source Causes Change In Executable Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com> - 2012-03-13 09:34 -0400
        Re: Adding Blank Line In Source Causes Change In Executable glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2012-03-14 05:26 +0000
        Re: Adding Blank Line In Source Causes Change In Executable HOKIENERD <hokienerd@gmail.com> - 2012-03-26 07:33 -0700
          Re: Adding Blank Line In Source Causes Change In Executable Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com> - 2012-03-26 13:36 -0400

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