GSoC contributor for GCC

GSoC contributor for GCC

[SAYAN MANDAL]

Sir,
I am a second year student from VIT, Vellore willing to participate in GSoC
and contribute to GCC. I am really sorry for this late application. The
reasons for choosing it are as follows
1. I am using GCC and GDB for C, C++ and NASM programming and I am
comfortable with most of the features of GCC
2. Since it has been a great asset in my learning journey, I want to
contribute to its development
3. I am willing to learn any additional compiler technologies needed for it

I am mostly interested in bypassing assembler in
1. Generating LTO object files
2. Making cp-demangle non-recursive

Please let me know what I need to do in order to become a part of the GCC
development team.

SAYAN MANDAL
918617005956

Re: GSoC contributor for GCC

[Martin Jambor]

Hello,

On Thu, Mar 31 2022, SAYAN MANDAL via Gcc wrote:
> Sir,
> I am a second year student from VIT, Vellore willing to participate in GSoC
> and contribute to GCC.

We are very happy that you are interested in contributing to GCC.

> I am really sorry for this late application. The
> reasons for choosing it are as follows
> 1. I am using GCC and GDB for C, C++ and NASM programming and I am
> comfortable with most of the features of GCC
> 2. Since it has been a great asset in my learning journey, I want to
> contribute to its development
> 3. I am willing to learn any additional compiler technologies needed for it

This might be a bit challenging but don't let that deter you.

>
> I am mostly interested in bypassing assembler in
> 1. Generating LTO object files

For this project you'd need to learn about the concept of Intermediate
Representation (IR), often also called Intermediate Language (IL).  The
goal of the task is simply to be able to dump it to a file and then read
it back without using the assembler to do so.  I do not know about any
particularly good resource to introduce you to the concept but googling
"Intermediate Representation" seems to return some good looking stuff.

The IR you will be working on is GIMPLE which is somewhat described
https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gccint/#toc-GIMPLE-1 but ultimately
you'll probably mostly learn about it from reading the code, don't let
the manual discourage you.

To learn about LTO, follow the advice in the last bullet point of
https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/SummerOfCode#Before_you_apply


> 2. Making cp-demangle non-recursive

This project does not require any thorough knowledge of compiler theory,
the task is quite compact but also a bit convoluted.  You need to
understand the algorithmic problem and show that you have a good plan
how to address it.  (It has been discussed recently on this mailing
list, you can look it up in the archives).

>
> Please let me know what I need to do in order to become a part of the GCC

Assuming you want to contribute within GSoC, you need to write a good
GSoC application (project proposal).  In that you need to demonstrate
you understand the project goal, know what needs to be done on a high
level, have the skills to implement it, and present a rough time-plan
how you'd like to proceed.

Feel free to ask for assistance in your research on this mailing list,
we want applicants to succeed and try to help as much as we can, but do
not expect to be entirely guided by us.

Good luck!

Martin