What does the compiler produce and how do you view it?

Assembly code — the human-readable, CPU-specific instructions — which you can view with gcc -S.

# Produces p24.pp.s
$ gcc -S p24.pp.c
# View assembly
$ vi p24.pp.s

Example assembly output:

.file "p24.pp.c"
.text
.section .rodata
...
main:
.LFB6:
    .cfi_startproc
    endbr64
    pushq %rbp
    movq  %rsp, %rbp
    ...

Assembly contains:

• Directives (.file, .text, .section)
• Labels (main:, .LFB6:)
• Instructions (pushq, movq, ret)

Go deeper:

• Assembly language (Wikipedia) — assembly as the human-readable output compilers emit before it becomes machine code.