[M3devel] C generating back end

[Jay K]

Fyi I finally looked at the 2.x implementation and the outputing of
C was implemented fairly directly at the m3front layer.
There wasn't the "M3CG" stuff.


Thus, the "easiest" way to get back such functionality would
probably be to "interleave" the old code and the new code within m3front.


The "cleaner" way is probably to implement a new M3CG though and
leave m3front unchanged.


I still think generating portable C a great way to achieve portability.
Better yet maybe, generate C++ and use its exception handling feature.
(ok, maybe generate both, in case some systems lack C++ support)


I realize there are several ways to view this though.

  gcc backend provides enough portability 
     imagine IA64_NT though. or Plan9. or even OpenBSD 
      or Darwin where there are long standing forks 
      (The OpenBSD patches are small and we carry/apply them.
      The Apple changes I think are mainly in the frontends
      which I think is how we get by.) 

     For efficient exception handling we should be able to use libunwind on most targets. 

  llvm would provide good portability and maybe other benefits like perf 
     less reach than gcc but hits the major platforms 
     difficult for me to get started with sorry 

  integrated backend could/should be ported around and is fast 
     a lot of work 
     I think the first steps here are to learn about mach-o and elf file formats
       as part of ports for other x86 targets. I've started a macho-dumper. 

  burg or others 

 - Jay

 		 	   		  
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