You can use ld to turn any file into an object file:

    ld -r -b binary -o foo_txt.o foo.txt

foo_txt.o then has these symbols:

extern const char _binary_foo_txt_start[]; extern const char _binary_foo_txt_end[]; extern const void *_binary_foo_txt_size;

So you need to write your own declarations (it doesn't generate a header file).

_binary_foo_txt_size is weird and has to be used as: (size_t)&_binary_foo_txt_size

Or use (size_t)(_binary_foo_txt_end - _binary_foo_txt_start) instead.

Consider the difference between what a compiler does and say a video game or embedded firmware. Compilers are old school batch mode programs that import data from a file, parse it, transform it to something, and emit it as a file.