Re: Compiling to the Intel instruction set

On Sun, Jun 06, 2004 at 04:52:52PM -0400, Gary Walker wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm looking for resources on how to build an optimizing compiler (back
> end) for the Intel386 instruction set.
>
> I'm not new to compilers and I know several other assembly languages,
> but I'm new to the Intel assembly language, and I especially need help
> in dealing with the fact that the registers are not orthoginal.


Good luck. The x86 instruction set is quite probably the most
convoluted and crufty instruction set to work with that's still in
widespread use. The fact that x86 has so few registers compared to
other contemporary architectures makes register allocation a truly
daunting task. The registers for the 386 onwards are actually quite
orthogonal, the main problem is that there are only seven of them.


Anyway, here's a mine of information on the x86 architecture that
contains everything you need to know on how to write and optimize code
for the x86 architecture:


http://www.sandpile.org/


That site has technical resources on every variant of the x86 processor
ever produced, including optimization guides, processor manuals, cycle
counts, and so on. This site may also be useful:


http://www.x86.org/


It's the DDJ microprocessor resource site.

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