From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f849b,20ab6e4b65d0ac97 X-Google-Attributes: gidf849b,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,20ab6e4b65d0ac97 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-12-09 23:45:09 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!newsfeed2.dallas1.level3.net!news.level3.com!news-out.visi.com!petbe.visi.com!newsfeed.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp!newsfeed01.tsnz.net!news.xtra.co.nz!53ab2750!not-for-mail From: Christopher Fairbairn Subject: Re: [Announce] AVR-Ada V0.1 released Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.arch.embedded Followup-To: comp.lang.ada Reply-To: ckf13@student.canterbury.ac.nz References: <46b8b50a.0312050448.654d6da4@posting.google.com> User-Agent: KNode/0.7.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit Message-ID: <8aABb.24813$VV6.572282@news.xtra.co.nz> Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 20:42:45 +1300 NNTP-Posting-Host: 219.89.164.103 X-Complaints-To: newsadmin@xtra.co.nz X-Trace: news.xtra.co.nz 1071042308 219.89.164.103 (Wed, 10 Dec 2003 20:45:08 NZDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 20:45:08 NZDT Organization: Xtra Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:3297 comp.arch.embedded:5237 Date: 2003-12-10T20:42:45+13:00 List-Id: Hi, Jeff C, wrote: > That would be a strange thing to presume. While there are Ada compilers > that take that approach I would > assume that since this is based on the Ada front end of GCC with a GNAT > heritage that it produces > code just like every other (well nearly every other) GCC/GNAT compiler. GCC vss GCC :-) Some people I know of are not aware of the true meaning to GCC. To them (mostly people doing embedded development work, using windows based development hosts) GCC stands for the "GNU C compiler" and not a lot more, they are not fully aware of it's origins or how it internally is architectured. They might know of other GNU compilers for languages such as Pascal, Ada or Fortran etc but they are not totally aware of how they are related with GCC. However, explaining GCC as the "GNU Compiler Collection" helps clarify things up quite a lot. GCC is made up of two major "components". Front-ends which parse languages such as C, C++, Fortran and Ada etc into an intermediate form and a series of back-ends which take the intermediate form and end up generating machine code for a particular architecture. Some things are shareable between the particular targets, for example there is a whole range of optomisations which can be done on the intermediate form which is not backend (target) specific and hence is shared across the different compilers. On the other hand there are optomisations which are exteremly architecture dependant and hence belong in code developed specifically for that port. A compiler built as part of the GNU Compiler collection is obviously the combination of a selected front end intergrated with a selected backend. The avr-gcc executable on my box is obvioulsy the combination of the avr backend and the C front end, while m68k-palmos-gcc is the same front end married to a different backend. Hopefully I havn't messed up that simplified description too much... There has been a backend for the AVR architecture for a while now, however the original developers (as far as I can remember off the top of my head) only worried about getting the C front end working reasonably well. As the original poster commented, there are various aspects of all languages which mean work before a "raw" backend code generator for that architecture can be utilised. Things such as how language constructs such as exceptions should map to architecture capabilities and any runtime library support required. In the case of a C compiler choices include things such as what size a long or short int should be etc etc. Hopefully I've clarified things slightly for those interested, and hopefully I havn't mucked up my simpilified description too much. Hope it helps, Christopher Fairbairn.