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author | jsm28 <jsm28@138bc75d-0d04-0410-961f-82ee72b054a4> | 2001-11-12 15:46:48 +0000 |
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committer | jsm28 <jsm28@138bc75d-0d04-0410-961f-82ee72b054a4> | 2001-11-12 15:46:48 +0000 |
commit | c595c96a668b23f52cf95e6e5c9af82efbcd1520 (patch) | |
tree | 7ce809932fcd2257692c59cd13c2e788c4e9896a /gcc/doc/portability.texi | |
parent | 65abff06e6de32c11e4524f5177712852ce477f7 (diff) | |
download | gcc-c595c96a668b23f52cf95e6e5c9af82efbcd1520.tar.gz |
* doc/gcc.texi: Move several chapters out to ...
* doc/configterms.texi, doc/fragments.texi, doc/hostconfig.texi,
doc/include/linux-and-gnu.texi, doc/interface.texi,
doc/makefile.texi, doc/passes.texi, doc/portability.texi:
... here. New files.
* doc/gcc.texi, doc/contrib.texi: Move section headings into
contrib.texi.
* Makefile.in ($(docdir)/gcc.info, gcc.dvi): Update dependencies.
git-svn-id: svn+ssh://gcc.gnu.org/svn/gcc/trunk@46951 138bc75d-0d04-0410-961f-82ee72b054a4
Diffstat (limited to 'gcc/doc/portability.texi')
-rw-r--r-- | gcc/doc/portability.texi | 38 |
1 files changed, 38 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/gcc/doc/portability.texi b/gcc/doc/portability.texi new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..c3d8e3913d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/gcc/doc/portability.texi @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ +@c Copyright (C) 1988, 1989, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, +@c 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc. +@c This is part of the GCC manual. +@c For copying conditions, see the file gcc.texi. + +@node Portability +@chapter GCC and Portability +@cindex portability +@cindex GCC and portability + +The main goal of GCC was to make a good, fast compiler for machines in +the class that the GNU system aims to run on: 32-bit machines that address +8-bit bytes and have several general registers. Elegance, theoretical +power and simplicity are only secondary. + +GCC gets most of the information about the target machine from a machine +description which gives an algebraic formula for each of the machine's +instructions. This is a very clean way to describe the target. But when +the compiler needs information that is difficult to express in this +fashion, I have not hesitated to define an ad-hoc parameter to the machine +description. The purpose of portability is to reduce the total work needed +on the compiler; it was not of interest for its own sake. + +@cindex endianness +@cindex autoincrement addressing, availability +@findex abort +GCC does not contain machine dependent code, but it does contain code +that depends on machine parameters such as endianness (whether the most +significant byte has the highest or lowest address of the bytes in a word) +and the availability of autoincrement addressing. In the RTL-generation +pass, it is often necessary to have multiple strategies for generating code +for a particular kind of syntax tree, strategies that are usable for different +combinations of parameters. Often I have not tried to address all possible +cases, but only the common ones or only the ones that I have encountered. +As a result, a new target may require additional strategies. You will know +if this happens because the compiler will call @code{abort}. Fortunately, +the new strategies can be added in a machine-independent fashion, and will +affect only the target machines that need them. |