A Retargetable C Compiler: Design and Implementation

Since 1975, Christopher W. Fraser has researched compiling, particularly producing code generators automatically from compact specs, and has published many technical articles in this area. He originated retargetable peephole optimization, which GCC, a popular C compiler, uses to help select instructions. From 1977 until 1986, Fraser taught computer science, including compiling, at the University of Arizona. Since 1986, Fraser has conducted computing research at AT&T Bell more >>

Since 1975, Christopher W. Fraser has researched compiling, particularly producing code generators automatically from compact specs, and has published many technical articles in this area. He originated retargetable peephole optimization, which GCC, a popular C compiler, uses to help select instructions. From 1977 until 1986, Fraser taught computer science, including compiling, at the University of Arizona. Since 1986, Fraser has conducted computing research at AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey.

David R. Hansonis a Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University with more than 20 years of research experience in programming languages. He has conducted research in conjunction with Bell Laboratories and is the co-author oflcc, a production quality, research compiler for the C language that is popular with the Unix community. lcc is presented and analyzed in the bookA Retargetable C Compiler: Design and Implementation, by Christopher Fraser and David Hanson (c) 1995, Addison-Wesley.

0805316701AB04062001

This new text examines the design and implementation oflcc, a production-quality, retargetable compiler for the ANSI C programming language, designed at AT&T Bell Laboratories and Princeton University. The authors' innovative approach--a "literate program" that intermingles the text with the source code--gives a detailed tour of the code that explains the implementation and design decisions reflected in the software. And while most books describe toy compilers or focus on isolated pieces of code, the authors provide the entire source code for a real compiler, which is available viaftp. Structured as a self-study guide that describes the real-world tradeoffs encountered in building a production-quality compiler, this book is useful to individuals who work in application areas applying or creating language-based tools and techniques.

• Explores the interaction between compiler theory and practice through the discussion of lcc.
• Covers compiler theory only as needed to understand the implementation of lcc, focusing instead on practical, applied issues.
• Encourages a broader understanding of programming in C through an examination of lcc, a production-quality compiler in use since 1988.
• Provides full code generators for the MIPS R3000, SPARC, and Intel 80x86 architectures and successors.
• The full source code for the lcc compiler, the three back ends, and the code-generator generator is freely available.
• Uses icons and brief indices in the margins to cross- reference code fragments and connect code usage.

Audience

Senior undergraduate or graduate level second course. Any researcher or implementer of compilers for parallel or advanced computers.

0805316701B04062001

The compiler is the linchpin of the programmer's toolbox. Working programmers use compilers every day and count heavily on their correctness and reliability. A compiler must accept the standard definition of the programming language so that source code will be portable across platforms. A compiler must generate efficient object code. Perhaps more important, a compiler must generate correct object code; an application is only as reliable as the compiler that compiled it.

A compiler is itself a large and complex application that is worthy of study in its own right. This book tours most of the implementation of lcc, a compiler for the ANSI C programming language. It is to compiling what Software Tools by B.W. Kernighan and P.J. Plauger (Addison-Wesley, 1976) is to text processing like text editors and macro processors. Software design and implementation are best learned through experience with real to << less