Re: Language-independent functions-as-trees representation

[Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.OZ.AU>]

On 22-Jul-2002, Diego Novillo <dnovillo@redhat.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 20 Jul 2002, Jason Merrill wrote:
> 
> > I'd like to return to the discussion of a language-independent
> > functions-as-trees representation that was going on in January.  At this
> > point I'd like to ignore the question of representation within a particular
> > frontend (INITIAL?), and focus on what the frontend hands off to the
> > middle-end (GENERIC?) and the simplified form which is used in
> > optimization (SIMPLE).
>
> I'm curious about GENERIC.  Currently we are making each front
> end do an INITIAL->SIMPLE pass via the simplify_function_tree
> hook.  What advantage do you see in having INITIAL->GENERIC->SIMPLE?

Less code in the language front-ends, and code reuse rather than code
duplication for the conversion to SIMPLE.

It's easier for each front end to generate GENERIC than it is to
generate SIMPLE, because GENERIC is more expressive and has less
constraints than SIMPLE.

-- 
Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au>  |  "I have always known that the pursuit
The University of Melbourne         |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>  |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.