On 2008-07-22, Larry Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Grant Edwards wrote:
>> On 2008-07-22, Larry Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>> You talk about "writing it in assembly language for each MPU
>>> chip". Actually it is even better than that. We now have
>>> these modern inventions, called compilers that do that type of
>>> work for us. They translate high level instructions, not
>>> into assembler but into machine language.
>>
>> Actually, all of the compilers I'm familiar with (gcc and a
>> handful of cross compilers for various microprocessors)
>> translate from high-level languages (e.g. C, C++) into
>> assembly, which is then assembled into relocatable object
>> files, which are then linked/loaded to produce machine
>> language.
>>
> I just learned something I did not know. I was under the
> impression that they translated directly to machine code
> without ever actually generating Assembler text files.
There may indeed be compilers that work that way. On Unix
systems (which is what I work with) compilers have
traditionally generated assembly language files.
> Seems like a waste to generate the text and turn around run
> that through the assembler, but what do I know. I guess that
> way the compiler can have pluggable assembler back-ends.
Since you probably need an assembler anyway, generating
assembly-language in the compiler prevents you from having to
duplicate a bunch of object-code-generation code in two places.
--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! Okay ... I'm going
at home to write the "I HATE
visi.com RUBIK's CUBE HANDBOOK FOR
DEAD CAT LOVERS" ...
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