Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In computer science, instruction selection is the stage of a compiler backend that transforms its middle-level intermediate representation (IR) into a low-level IR. In a typical compiler, instruction selection precedes both instruction scheduling and register allocation; hence its output IR has an infinite set of pseudo-registers (often known as temporaries) and may still be – and typically ...
A compiler is likely to perform some or all of the following operations, often called phases: preprocessing, lexical analysis, parsing, semantic analysis (syntax-directed translation), conversion of input programs to an intermediate representation, code optimization and machine specific code generation.
For example, YACC (Yet Another Compiler-Compiler) takes input in Backus–Naur form and converts it to a parser in C. Though it was originally created for automatic generation of a parser for a compiler, yacc is also often used to automate writing code that needs to be modified each time specifications are changed. [3]
Most compilers have at least the following compiler phases (which therefore occur at compile-time): syntax analysis, semantic analysis, and code generation.During optimization phases, constant expressions in the source code can also be evaluated at compile-time using compile-time execution, which reduces the constant expressions to a single value.
A tracing JIT compiler goes through various phases at runtime. First, profiling information for loops is collected. After a scope loop has been identified, a special tracing phase is entered, which records all executed operations of that loop. This sequence of operations is called a trace.
System cost or reliability may be more important than the code speed. For example, compilers for embedded software usually offer options that reduce code size at the expense of speed. The code's timing may need to be predictable, rather than as fast as possible, so code caching might be disabled, along with compiler optimizations that require it.
The GNU Compiler Collection is one compiler known to perform instruction scheduling, using the -march (both instruction set and scheduling) or -mtune (only scheduling) flags. It uses descriptions of instruction latencies and what instructions can be run in parallel (or equivalently, which "port" each use) for each microarchitecture to perform ...
Both of the authors won the 2020 Turing award for their work on compilers. It is often called the " green dragon book " [ 1 ] and its cover depicts a knight and a dragon in battle; the dragon is green, and labeled "Complexity of Compiler Design", while the knight wields a lance and a shield labeled " LALR parser generator " and "Syntax Directed ...