[En-Nut-Discussion] GCC optimizations

[Curtis Maloney]

Thiago A. Corrêa wrote:
> Compilers usually have a front end, responsible for parsing the text
> sources into a tree, that represents that code. Then the back end
> takes that tree and generates the machine code. In GCC this is very
> clearly separated AFAIK, with a single front end and many backends,
> for each one of the supported targets.

GCC (at least, since 4.0) has a middle stage, also, which is able to perform 
many target-independent optimisations.  The language specific front end 
translates to an intermediate form, which is then analysed and optimised 
before being 'lowered' to the representation handed to the platform specific 
back end.

-- 
Curtis Maloney
cmaloney at cardgate.net