Re: Why do we still assemble?

hbaker@netcom.com (Henry G. Baker) writes:


      Other than sheer institutional inertia, why do we continue to compile into
      assembler code, then assemble the code into relocatable binary? Why don't
      we compile directly to relocatable binary and be done with it?


We don't all.


SunPro's compilers (from the "SC 3.0" release onward) avoid an assembly
step when convient, such as in the default mode of operation.


On a particular machine, OS configuration etc. a compiler from the last
release to always go through the assembler vs. the modern one, for the gcc
file "loop.c":


SC2.0.1
real 0m17.53s
user 0m13.48s
sys 0m1.80s


SC3.0.x
real 0m7.35s
user 0m5.56s
sys 0m0.80s


There really are many other changes .... reading and writing the assembly
file was *not* the sole difference.


As always, milage varies.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Keith H. Bierman keith.bierman@Sun.COM| khb@chiba.Eng.Sun.COM
SunPro 2550 Garcia MTV 12-40 | (415 336 2648) fax 964 0946
Mountain View, CA 94043
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