I just started coding in C, and ran someone else's Makefile with the default C compiler set to gcc. I am on Mac OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion and I believe I installed the compiler with "XCode Command Line Tools." After running "make" on command line, I get these annoying .dSYM files for each program. I read that these are debug files, but are they really necessary? Is there any way to prevent them from being generated from command line?
Yes, the dSYM files are necessary. Specifically, they contain the symbol tables that are included within Xcode debug builds; release builds put the symbols in this separate file. If you ever need to analyze a stack trace from a release build you will need this. And make sure you don't lose the files, because doing the build again, even if the source is absolutely the same, won't produce a usable dSYM file. Each build is given a UUID and that changes with each build, even if the source has not changed. (I guess it includes a timestamp or even a random number.)
If you throw away the dSYM files, then if you suddenly find your app crashing a lot, you may be sorry.