Working to address a user question, I noticed that many of our pages use the spelling of "backend" when http://gcc.gnu.org/codingconventions.html suggest "back end" (noun) and "back-end" (adjective).
Joseph, if you confirm that back end it is (as a noun), I'll apply the patch below. Gerald Index: contribute.html =================================================================== RCS file: /cvs/gcc/wwwdocs/htdocs/contribute.html,v retrieving revision 1.81 diff -u -3 -p -r1.81 contribute.html --- contribute.html 18 Aug 2013 20:59:25 -0000 1.81 +++ contribute.html 10 Nov 2013 20:34:10 -0000 @@ -308,11 +308,11 @@ is a good candidate for being mentioned <p>Larger accomplishments, either as part of a specific project, or long term commitment, merit mention on the front page. Examples include projects -like tree-ssa, new backends, major advances in optimization or standards +like tree-ssa, new back ends, major advances in optimization or standards compliance.</p> <p>The gcc-announce mailing list serves to announce new releases and changes -like frontends or backends being dropped.</p> +like front ends or back ends being dropped.</p> </body> </html> Index: frontends.html =================================================================== RCS file: /cvs/gcc/wwwdocs/htdocs/frontends.html,v retrieving revision 1.38 diff -u -3 -p -r1.38 frontends.html --- frontends.html 27 Mar 2013 21:53:00 -0000 1.38 +++ frontends.html 10 Nov 2013 20:34:10 -0000 @@ -33,14 +33,14 @@ are very mature.</p> href="http://www.mercurylang.org/download/gcc-backend.html">Mercury</a>, a declarative logic/functional language. The University of Melbourne Mercury compiler is written in Mercury; originally it compiled via C but now it also -has a backend that generates assembler directly, using the GCC backend.</li> +has a back end that generates assembler directly, using the GCC back end.</li> <li><a href="http://CobolForGCC.sourceforge.net/">Cobol For GCC</a> (at an early stage of development).</li> <li><a href="http://www.nongnu.org/gm2/">GNU Modula-2</a> implements the PIM2, PIM3, PIM4 and ISO dialects of the language. The compiler -is fully operational with the GCC 4.1.2 backend (on GNU/Linux x86 +is fully operational with the GCC 4.1.2 back end (on GNU/Linux x86 systems). Work is in progress to move the frontend to the GCC trunk. The frontend is mostly written in Modula-2, but includes a bootstrap procedure via a heavily modified version of p2c.</li> Index: lists.html =================================================================== RCS file: /cvs/gcc/wwwdocs/htdocs/lists.html,v retrieving revision 1.106 diff -u -3 -p -r1.106 lists.html --- lists.html 24 Oct 2013 01:31:10 -0000 1.106 +++ lists.html 10 Nov 2013 20:34:10 -0000 @@ -95,7 +95,7 @@ before <a href="#subscribe">subscribing< <li><b><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/jit/">jit</a></b> is for discussion and development of <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/JIT">libgccjit</a>, an experimental - library for implementing Just-In-Time compilation using gcc as a backend. + library for implementing Just-In-Time compilation using GCC as a back end. The list is intended for both users and developers of the library. Patches for the jit branch should go to both this list and <b>gcc-patches</b>.</li> Index: news.html =================================================================== RCS file: /cvs/gcc/wwwdocs/htdocs/news.html,v retrieving revision 1.137 diff -u -3 -p -r1.137 news.html --- news.html 12 Aug 2013 00:01:45 -0000 1.137 +++ news.html 10 Nov 2013 20:34:11 -0000 @@ -1079,10 +1079,10 @@ noticed or fixed defects or made other u <dt><b>May 1, 2000</b></dt> <dd> <p>Richard Earnshaw of ARM Ltd, and Nick Clifton of Cygnus, a Red Hat -company, have contributed a new backend for the Arm and Thumb +company, have contributed a new back end for the Arm and Thumb processors.</p> -<p>The new backend combines code generation for the Arm, the Thumb and +<p>The new back end combines code generation for the Arm, the Thumb and the StrongArm into one compiler, with the target processor and instruction sets being selectable via command line switches.</p> </dd> @@ -1260,7 +1260,7 @@ changes from the old GCC 2 sources. <dt><b>September 2, 1999</b></dt> <dd> -Richard Henderson has finished merging the ia32 backend rewrite into the +Richard Henderson has finished merging the ia32 back end rewrite into the mainline GCC sources. The rewrite is designed to improve optimization opportunities for the Pentium II target, but also provides a cleaner way to optimize for the Pentium III, AMD-K7 and other high end ia32 @@ -1537,7 +1537,7 @@ Cygnus donates <a href="news/chill.html" <dt><b>August 25, 1998</b></dt> <dd> - David Miller donates rewritten <a href="news/sparc.html"><b>sparc backend</b></a>. + David Miller donates rewritten <a href="news/sparc.html"><b>SPARC back end</b></a>. </dd> <dt><b>August 19, 1998</b></dt> Index: svn.html =================================================================== RCS file: /cvs/gcc/wwwdocs/htdocs/svn.html,v retrieving revision 1.189 diff -u -3 -p -r1.189 svn.html --- svn.html 14 Sep 2013 00:42:41 -0000 1.189 +++ svn.html 10 Nov 2013 20:34:11 -0000 @@ -880,7 +880,7 @@ be prefixed with the initials of the dis <dt>dataflow-branch</dt> <dd>This branch has been merged into mainline on June 6, 2007 - as svn revision 125624. It used to contain replacement of backend + as svn revision 125624. It used to contain a replacement of back-end dataflow with df.c based dataflow. The branch was maintained by Daniel Berlin < <a href="mailto:dber...@dberlin.org">dber...@dberlin.org</a>> Index: egcs-1.0/index.html =================================================================== RCS file: /cvs/gcc/wwwdocs/htdocs/egcs-1.0/index.html,v retrieving revision 1.2 diff -u -3 -p -r1.2 index.html --- egcs-1.0/index.html 24 Oct 2011 19:35:59 -0000 1.2 +++ egcs-1.0/index.html 10 Nov 2013 20:34:11 -0000 @@ -84,7 +84,7 @@ release:</p> libraries built by EGCS 1.0 that contain C++ code (upgrade to 1.0.1 and use that).</p></li> - <li><p> Various bugfixes in the x86, hppa, mips, and rs6000/ppc backends.</p> + <li><p> Various bugfixes in the x86, hppa, mips, and rs6000/ppc back ends.</p> <p>The x86 changes fix code generation errors exposed when building glibc2 and the usual GNU/Linux dynamic linker (ld.so).</p> @@ -143,7 +143,7 @@ serious problems in EGCS 1.0.1.</p> <li> Add missing entries to g77 lang-options.</li> <li> Fix problem with -fpedantic in the g77 compiler.</li> <li> Fix "backspace" problem with g77 on alphas.</li> - <li> Fix x86 backend problem with Fortran literals and -fpic.</li> + <li> Fix x86 back end problem with Fortran literals and -fpic.</li> <li> Fix some of the problems with negative subscripts for g77 on alphas.</li> <li> Fixes for Fortran builds on cygwin32/mingw32.</li> Index: egcs-1.1/features.html =================================================================== RCS file: /cvs/gcc/wwwdocs/htdocs/egcs-1.1/features.html,v retrieving revision 1.21 diff -u -3 -p -r1.21 features.html --- egcs-1.1/features.html 26 Jul 2008 18:44:59 -0000 1.21 +++ egcs-1.1/features.html 10 Nov 2013 20:34:11 -0000 @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ <li> x86: Alignment of static store data and jump targets is per Intel recommendations now. Various improvements throughout the x86 port to improve performance on Pentium processors (including - improved epilogue sequences for Pentium chips and backend + improved epilogue sequences for Pentium chips and back end improvements which should help register allocation on all x86 variants. Conditional move support has been fixed and enabled for PPro processors. Index: egcs-1.1/index.html =================================================================== RCS file: /cvs/gcc/wwwdocs/htdocs/egcs-1.1/index.html,v retrieving revision 1.6 diff -u -3 -p -r1.6 index.html --- egcs-1.1/index.html 24 Oct 2011 10:14:39 -0000 1.6 +++ egcs-1.1/index.html 10 Nov 2013 20:34:11 -0000 @@ -87,7 +87,7 @@ EGCS 1.1:</p> <li> Fix a few arm code generation bugs.</li> <li> Fixincludes will fix additional broken SCO OpenServer header files.</li> - <li> Fix a m68k backend bug which caused invalid offsets in reg+d + <li> Fix a m68k back end bug which caused invalid offsets in reg+d addresses.</li> <li> Fix problems with 64bit AIX 4.3 support.</li> <li> Fix handling of long longs for varargs/stdarg functions on the Index: gcc-2.95/features.html =================================================================== RCS file: /cvs/gcc/wwwdocs/htdocs/gcc-2.95/features.html,v retrieving revision 1.39 diff -u -3 -p -r1.39 features.html --- gcc-2.95/features.html 15 Jun 2008 09:05:09 -0000 1.39 +++ gcc-2.95/features.html 10 Nov 2013 20:34:11 -0000 @@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ </ul></li> <li>New Targets and Target Specific Improvements <ul> - <li><a href="../news/sparc.html">SPARC backend rewrite</a>.</li> + <li><a href="../news/sparc.html">SPARC back end rewrite</a>.</li> <li>-mschedule=8000 will optimize code for PA8000 class processors; -mpa-risc-2-0 will generate code for PA2.0 processors</li> <li>Various micro-optimizations for the ia32 port. K6 optimizations</li> @@ -197,7 +197,7 @@ enabled by default in future releases. <ul> <li>Work around bug in Sun V5.0 compilers which caused bootstrap comparison failures on SPARC targets.</li> - <li>Fix SPARC backend bug which caused aborts in final.c.</li> + <li>Fix SPARC back end bug which caused aborts in final.c.</li> <li>Fix sparc-hal-solaris2* configuration fragments.</li> <li>Fix bug in sparc block profiling.</li> <li>Fix obscure code generation bug for the PARISC targets.</li> Index: gcc-4.8/changes.html =================================================================== RCS file: /cvs/gcc/wwwdocs/htdocs/gcc-4.8/changes.html,v retrieving revision 1.123 diff -u -3 -p -r1.123 changes.html --- gcc-4.8/changes.html 16 Oct 2013 13:47:15 -0000 1.123 +++ gcc-4.8/changes.html 10 Nov 2013 20:34:11 -0000 @@ -639,7 +639,7 @@ int i = A().f(); // error, f() requires <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/FunctionMultiVersioning">wiki</a> for more information. </li> - <li> The x86 backend has been improved to allow option + <li> The x86 back end has been improved to allow option <code>-fschedule-insns</code> to work reliably. This option can be used to schedule instructions better and leads to improved performace in certain cases.</li> Index: news/profiledriven.html =================================================================== RCS file: /cvs/gcc/wwwdocs/htdocs/news/profiledriven.html,v retrieving revision 1.8 diff -u -3 -p -r1.8 profiledriven.html --- news/profiledriven.html 25 Apr 2009 23:20:53 -0000 1.8 +++ news/profiledriven.html 10 Nov 2013 20:34:11 -0000 @@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ passes destroyed the profile. </p> <p> The first contribution to this project was to revamp large parts -of the GCC backend to maintain a consistent copy of the control flow +of the GCC back end to maintain a consistent copy of the control flow graph so that all optimization passes can easily get correct profile information. As part of this rework, the jump optimization pass has been rewritten. The new jump optimization should be faster and easier Index: news/sparc.html =================================================================== RCS file: /cvs/gcc/wwwdocs/htdocs/news/sparc.html,v retrieving revision 1.6 diff -u -3 -p -r1.6 sparc.html --- news/sparc.html 21 Jan 2002 10:24:45 -0000 1.6 +++ news/sparc.html 10 Nov 2013 20:34:11 -0000 @@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ <p>August 25, 1998</p> <p>We are pleased to announce that David Miller has donated a rewrite of the -SPARC backend for GCC. This rewrite should improve performance as well as +SPARC back end for GCC. This rewrite should improve performance as well as improve long term maintainability of the compiler. Details follow.</p> <pre> @@ -139,7 +139,7 @@ improve long term maintainability of the 4) Tremendously improved support for instruction level parallelism on UltraSPARC. Using some new pieces of infrastructure added to - the Haifa scheduler recently, the SPARC backend can now achieve + the Haifa scheduler recently, the SPARC back end can now achieve higher levels of instruction issue per cycle on UltraSPARC than has ever been possible before. @@ -201,13 +201,13 @@ improve long term maintainability of the similar techniques will be incorporated into the sparc64 support code as well. -6) Nearly all operations ever generated by the SPARC backend are +6) Nearly all operations ever generated by the SPARC back end are described with a single RTL pattern which generates a single SPARC instruction. This is important for delay slot and instruction level scheduling. 7) There are no more hard coded hard registers used in the - RTL generated by the SPARC backend. The only exceptions to + RTL generated by the SPARC back end. The only exceptions to this which remain are unavoidable cases such as for argument passing semantics and for the PIC base register (the latter can actually be eliminated, and this is a planned future enhancement). @@ -240,7 +240,7 @@ improve long term maintainability of the b) The second instruction adds "some unspecified number of low bits of 0x12345678" to register %o0 - The new SPARC backend will output code which tells the optimizer + The new SPARC back end will output code which tells the optimizer exactly what is going on in each instruction, and also generate a temporary for the sake of common subexpression detection: Index: projects/cfg.html =================================================================== RCS file: /cvs/gcc/wwwdocs/htdocs/projects/cfg.html,v retrieving revision 1.18 diff -u -3 -p -r1.18 cfg.html --- projects/cfg.html 6 Feb 2011 02:00:48 -0000 1.18 +++ projects/cfg.html 10 Nov 2013 20:34:12 -0000 @@ -285,7 +285,7 @@ with external scope and some infrastruct on a state variable which indicates we've started the lowering process. For the actual lowering process, we want to avoid twiddling the existing -backends as much as possible. If I recall, the general idea Richard and +back ends as much as possible. If I recall, the general idea Richard and I came up with was: For each insn: @@ -410,11 +410,11 @@ the compiler can now predict branches us infrequent. It also allows to handle and specially predict constructs such as return of (negative) constants, out of range code and, exception handling where the front end knows that those are infrequent, but the -backend has no information about it.</p> +back end has no information about it.</p> <p>We can also use it to preserve more information about high-level loops. For instance loop a with continue statement looks like two -nested loops to the backend, but the optimizer may be able to estimate +nested loops to the back end, but the optimizer may be able to estimate that the internal (continue) loop is not that frequent.</p> Index: projects/cli.html =================================================================== RCS file: /cvs/gcc/wwwdocs/htdocs/projects/cli.html,v retrieving revision 1.22 diff -u -3 -p -r1.22 cli.html --- projects/cli.html 13 Sep 2009 11:39:20 -0000 1.22 +++ projects/cli.html 10 Nov 2013 20:34:12 -0000 @@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ <dl> <dt>2009-07</dt> -<dd><p>Update CLI backend to GCC 4.4, TAG added</p></dd> +<dd><p>Update CLI back end to GCC 4.4, TAG added</p></dd> </dl> <dl> @@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ <dl> <dt>2009-04</dt> -<dd><p>Update CLI backend to GCC 4.3, TAG added</p></dd> +<dd><p>Update CLI back end to GCC 4.3, TAG added</p></dd> </dl> <dl> Index: projects/documentation.html =================================================================== RCS file: /cvs/gcc/wwwdocs/htdocs/projects/documentation.html,v retrieving revision 1.5 diff -u -3 -p -r1.5 documentation.html --- projects/documentation.html 19 Sep 2007 22:40:29 -0000 1.5 +++ projects/documentation.html 10 Nov 2013 20:34:12 -0000 @@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ technical writing skills.</p> <li><a href="#internals_and_porting">Better documentation of how GCC works and how to port it</a></li> - <li><a href="#RTL">Fully document the backend intermediate language + <li><a href="#RTL">Fully document the back end intermediate language data structures</a></li> <li><a href="#improve_manual_index">Improve the indexing @@ -168,7 +168,7 @@ specified in the formal definition of th </ol> -<h2><a name="RTL">Fully document the backend intermediate +<h2><a name="RTL">Fully document the back end intermediate language data structures</a></h2> <p>Document every RTX code and accessor macro, every insn name, every