Compilers producing assembly language

This may or may not reopen and old debate that I don't know about...


How many compilers in "the real world" produce assembly language instead
of relocatable binary? I know that almost all standard (i.e. from a vendor)
Unix compilers first produce assembly language. I don't know about some
of the more exotic Unix machines such at UTS, Cray Unix or systems where
the C compiler was first written for a different OS (e.g. DG). What about
second party Unix compilers, e.g. Greenhills, Tartan Labs?


What I'm really after is:


1) Are there a lot of Unix compilers that don't produce assembly?


2) Are there common non-Unix compilers that do produce assembly?


3) [The $64,000 question:] Given that one's assembler (like 'as' on
      Unix) does not have a lot of extra overhead (macros etc.), is there
      still that big a win in generating relocatable binary directly?
--
Arnold Robbins
ARPA, CSNET: arnold@emory.ARPA BITNET: arnold@emory
UUCP: { decvax, gatech, }!emory!arnold DOMAIN: arnold@emory.edu (soon)
[I've heard arguments either way. Most assemblers on non-Unix systems are
chock full of features and so are so slow as to be unsuitable for the last
pass of a compiler, so the question never comes up. Other than some of the
C compilers for the PC which optionally run through the assembler so as to
allow in-line assembler to be passed through, I've never seen a non-Unix
compiler that produces assembler. -John]
--

Return to the comp.compilers page.
Search the comp.compilers archives again.