The output from the C or C++ compiler is an extended object file (XOBJ). As shown in Figure 1, the prelinker then uses one or more of these XOBJ object files as input together with the prelinker control statements (INCLUDE, LIBRARY, and RENAME) to create a traditional object module. The prelinker performs autocalls for unresolved references by including object modules from PDS libraries, C370LIB libraries, or z/OS UNIX archive files.
Output from the prelinker is then fed into either the binder or linkage editor, both of which use autocall to resolve any remaining references to non-C routines. The linkage editor always creates a load module as output. The binder's output module can be either a load module or program object, depending on whether the SYSLMOD DD statement specifies a PDS or PDSE program library or a z/OS UNIX file.