Re: Target-specific Front-Ends? (Was: front end changes for

[Ziemowit Laski <zlaski@apple.com>]

On Wednesday, November 28, 2001, at 07:36 , Aldy Hernandez wrote:

>>>>>> "Ziemowit" == Ziemowit Laski <zlaski@apple.com> writes:
>
>> On Tuesday, November 27, 2001, at 06:23 , Aldy Hernandez wrote:
>
>>> I've actually thought about implementing generic front end extension
>>> support to gcc for this kind of nonsense.  Sort of like a preprocessor
>>> that runs after the actual C preprocessor-- massages the output in any
>>> way it sees fit, and feeds its output to the lexical analyzer.
>>>
>>> This way if someone wants to implement some brain dead front end
>>> extension widely used somewhere else, it could be a plugin-- and we
>>> could offer a whole slew of plugins in the future (altivec plugins,
>>> msoft inline assembly plugin, etc etc).
>>>
>>> That sounds like a good project :)
>
>> Well, it definitely sounds interesting!  Tell me more. :) :)
>
> simple, it just reads the output from CPP, manipulates the strings,
> and, feeds it's output to the lexer.

Interesting idea.  I was thinking along the lines of putting this
functionality into the back-end of CPP itself (so that you can use -E
to see how the code is being rewritten), and instead of dealing with
raw source lines operate on the resulting token stream (i.e., rearrange,
insert, remove tokens) before passing it out.  But I think we're 
basically
on the same page.

I wouldn't mind COLLABORATING with someone on this (I don't think I have
sufficient cycles left in my day to go it alone).  But first and 
foremost,
I'd like to have some sort of a statement from the SC specifying the
technical parameters of an acceptable solution -- in other words, a
guarantee that if a solution meeting those criteria is created, it will
be accepted.  No more Pascal string work from me. :) :)

--Zem

--------------------------------------------------------------
Ziemowit Laski                   Apple Computer, Inc.
zlaski@apple.com                 2 Infinite Loop, MS 302-4SN
+1.408.974.6229  Fax .1344       Cupertino, CA  95014-2085