How do C/C++ compilers work?

c++ c compiler-construction compiler-optimization
Justicle picture Justicle · Jul 6, 2009 · Viewed 24.9k times · Source

After over a decade of C/C++ coding, I've noticed the following pattern - very good programmers tend to have detailed knowledge of the innards of the compiler.

I'm a reasonably good programmer, and I have an ad-hoc collection of compiler "superstitions", so I'd like to reboot my knowledge and start from the basics.

Can anyone recommend links to online resources or favorite books? I'm particularly interested in C/C++ compiling, optimization, GCC and LLVM.

Answer

sourabh jaiswal picture sourabh jaiswal · Jul 6, 2009

Start with the dragon book....(stress more on code optimization and code generation)

Go onto write a toy compiler for an educational programming language like Decaf or Cool.., you may use parser generators (lex and yacc) for your front end(to make life easier and focus on more imp stuff)....

Then read gcc internals book along with browsing gcc source code.

Related questions

how does array[100] = {0} set the entire array to 0?

How does the compiler fill values in char array[100] = {0};? What's the magic behind it? I wanted to know how internally compiler initializes.

Read More
Where are static variables stored in C and C++?

In what segment (.BSS, .DATA, other) of an executable file are static variables stored so that they don't have name collision? For example: foo.c: bar.c: static int foo = 1; static int foo = 10; void fooTest() { void barTest() { static int bar = 2; …

Read More
What's the difference between __PRETTY_FUNCTION__, __FUNCTION__, __func__?

What's the difference between __PRETTY_FUNCTION__, __FUNCTION__, __func__, and where are they documented? How do I decide which one to use?

Read More