Patent · US Expired

Optimizing compiler using templates corresponding to portions of an intermediate language graph to determine an order of evaluation and to allocate lifetimes to temporary names for variables

US5613117A · kind A · utility

133Cited by
9References
14Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateApr 20, 1994
Grant dateMar 18, 1997
Priority date
Expiry dateApr 20, 2014

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F8/447
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A compiler framework uses a generic "shell" and a generic back end (where the code generator is target-specific). The generic back end provides the functions of optimization, register and memory allocation, and code generation. The code generation function of the back end may be targeted for any of a number of computer architectures. A front end is tailored for each different source language, such as Cobol, Fortran, Pascal, C, C++, etc. The front end scans and parses the source code modules, and generates from them an intermediate language representation of the source code programs expressed in the source code. The intermediate language represents any of the source code languages in a universal manner, so the interface between the front end and back end is of a standard format, and need not be rewritten for each language-specific front end. A feature is a method for doing code generation using code templates in a multipass manner. The selection and application of code templates occurs at four different times during the compilation process: (1) A pattern select phase does a pattern match in a context pass to select the best code templates; (2) Tasks of the context pass use context a…

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.