Re: [Tinycc-devel] Optimizing code for expressions

[Basile STARYNKEVITCH]

>>>>> "Fabrice" == Fabrice Bellard <address@hidden> writes:

    Fabrice> Mauro Persano wrote:
    >> Hi,
    >> 
    >> I'm wondering if there would be any interest in a modification
    >> for tcc [...]
    >> 
    >> I realize that tcc is (highly) optimized for compiler size and
    >> fast compile times, so a modification like this could be viewed
    >> as an attempt to steer it away from its original goals. I'm
    >> willing to try it, though. Any thoughts?

    Fabrice> I would prefer a modification in which the program is
    Fabrice> transformed in an intermediate RISC like machine
    Fabrice> language. A first step would be to add a new target for
    Fabrice> TCC to generate this RISC like language, and then to
    Fabrice> write the converter to x86 code.

Two small remarks (which I might have already made here a few months
ago)

First, as a RISC like intermediate langauge, you might consider C--;
see http://www.cminusminus.org for more. However, generating any kind
on language would IMHO make the compiler much slower (so against tcc
goals). I think that tinycc speed is essentially because it generate
directly binary code.

Second, for dynamicly generating small piece of code, the GNU
lightning library might be more useful. You can get it from
http://www.gnu.org/software/lightning/lightning.html (current version
is 1.1).

Lightning could also be used inside tinycc to offer portability to
some more architectures such as Sparc (perhaps at the expanse of
performance of the generated code).


-- 

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