Re: A retargetable compiler

"iaznar" <iaznar@wanadoo.es> writes:
> We have found
> information about retargetable compilers like LANCE, that let have
> source code in ANSI C and has all the work of analysis made, it is
> architecture independent.
> ...
> In LANCE documentation speaks about the tools OLIVE and IBURG for
> make the synthesis, the code generators. I have found IBURG, but I
> found nothing about OLIVE.
> ..
> And, more general, do you thing those are the right tools I need?


I'm not familiar with OLIVE either, but IBURG (and its sibling BURG)
might very well be the right tool for you. Iburg is good at finding
the cheapest - you define the metrics - machine instruction sequence
for a given tree of intermediate language instructions. This is
especially useful if there are many alternative translations to choose
from, as is often the case in CISC processors. If your processor is
more of a RISC cpu then the problem is probably not so much choosing
the right instructions, as well as scheduling them. In that case the
gain from using a code generator generator is less spectacular but it
will probably save you some time and make your code easier to
maintain.


If memory serves me well the lcc c-compiler was done by the authors of
BURG and uses (I?)BURG in its backend. You may want to have a look at
that compiler to see a real-world example.

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