A retargetable compiler for ANSI C

Abstract

Lcc is a new retargetable compiler for ANSI C. Versions for the VAX, Motorola 68020, SPARC, and MIPS are in production use at Princeton University and at AT&T Bell Laboratories. With a few exceptions, little about lcc is unusual --- it integrates several well engineered, existing techniques --- but it is smaller and faster than most other C compilers, and it generates code of comparable quality, lcc's target-independent front end performs a few simple, but effective, optimizations that contribute to good code; examples include simulating register declarations and partitioning switch statement cases into dense tables. It also implements target-independent function tracing and expression-level profiling.