Re: Compiler Correctness

henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
11 Feb 2006 17:52:19 -0500

          From comp.compilers

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[5 earlier articles]
Re: Compiler Correctness danwang74@gmail.com (Daniel C. Wang) (2006-02-11)
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Re: Compiler Correctness henry@spsystems.net (2006-02-11)
Re: Compiler Correctness Sid.Touati@inria.fr (Sid Touati) (2006-02-11)
Re: Compiler Correctness haberg@math.su.se (2006-02-11)
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Re: Compiler Correctness henry@spsystems.net (2006-02-11)
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Re: Compiler Correctness marcov@stack.nl (Marco van de Voort) (2006-02-14)
Re: Compiler Correctness DrDiettrich@compuserve.de (Hans-Peter Diettrich) (2006-02-14)
Re: Compiler Correctness henry@spsystems.net (2006-02-17)
Re: Compiler Correctness henry@spsystems.net (2006-02-17)
[3 later articles]
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From: henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: 11 Feb 2006 17:52:19 -0500
Organization: SP Systems, Toronto, Canada
References: 06-02-053 06-02-061 06-02-078
Keywords: theory, debug
Posted-Date: 11 Feb 2006 17:52:19 EST

Sid Touati <Sid.Touati@inria.fr> wrote:
>As example, suppose that the compiler executes on a 32 bits machine and
> generates a code for a 64 bits machine. If the compiler makes static
>constant propagation, it makes arithmetic computation on the 32 bit
>machine. This would not give you the same result if you generate the
>code on the 64 bits machines.


Any cross-compiler which doesn't emulate the *target* machine's arithmetic
when performing operations like constant propagation is simply broken.


Of course, if it does emulate, there is still the issue of whether it
emulates *correctly*. But this is just another case of "are there bugs in
the compiler?"; it's not a fundamental problem of missed assumptions.


>We can imagine more complex cases with floating point computations...


Emulating another machine's floating point is definitely a lot of work
(the widespread consensus on IEEE-standard floating point has helped but
doesn't entirely solve the problem). But if you signed on to write a
cross-compiler, well, you knew the job was dangerous when you took it. :-)
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. | henry@spsystems.net


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