Using `solc --help` provides you with an explanation of all options. The compiler can produce various outputs, ranging from simple binaries and assembly over an abstract syntax tree (parse tree) to estimations of gas usage.

If you only want to compile a single file, you run it as `solc --bin sourceFile.sol` and it will print the binary. Before you deploy your contract, activate the optimizer while compiling using `solc --optimize --bin sourceFile.sol`. If you want to get some of the more advanced output variants of `solc`, it is probably better to tell it to output everything to separate files using `solc -o outputDirectory --bin --ast --asm sourceFile.sol`.

If your contracts use [libraries](#libraries), you will notice that the bytecode contains substrings of the form `__LibraryName______`. You can use `solc` as a linker meaning that it will insert the library addresses for you at those points: