On Wed, 3 Nov 2010 08:19:06 +0000 Jay K <jay.kr...@cornell.edu> wrote:
> > > Are you coding inside your branch, or just your plugin? > > [implied] What are you actually doing? > > > It isn't relevant or short, but if you really want to know: > > > It is a front end, and indeed, a branch, it won't ever be contributed. > It is the Modula-3 frontend, which plays slight licensing games and > the original authors aren't around, so couldn't get to FSF, and current > maintainers can't either. I believe that your case is a very good example of why front-ends should be able to become plugins. It is not the case yet, and adding extra plugin hooks is very painful (the standard feedback from the GCC community being that it is useless, but to show that they are useful, you need to have a working plugin using them!). What could interest you more (but it won't happen in gcc 4.6, perhaps in 4.7 or 5.0) is the future gimple front-end. When it will work, your Modula-3 compiler could generate some .gimple textual file, and gcc would be able to eat it. (and there is also LLVM which could perhaps interest you). Your compiler could also perhaps use GCC 4.5 with a special plugin (or a MELT extension). The dirty trick would be that you will run gcc-4.5 on some empty.c but your plugin (or MELT extension), inside its own pass, would add the real GIMPLE-s (& tree-s) or Generic-s representing the Modula-3 source code. Cheers -- Basile STARYNKEVITCH http://starynkevitch.net/Basile/ email: basile<at>starynkevitch<dot>net mobile: +33 6 8501 2359 8, rue de la Faiencerie, 92340 Bourg La Reine, France *** opinions {are only mine, sont seulement les miennes} ***
