Code Generation
Explore the code generation phase in compiler construction, where high-level program representations are converted into target machine code. Understand the role of intermediate representations, register allocation, and instruction selection. Discover common code optimization methods such as constant folding, dead code elimination, and loop optimizations to enhance performance and resource use. This lesson equips you to implement efficient, executable code tailored to specific architectures.
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Code generation
Code generation is a critical phase in the construction of a compiler. It involves translating the high-level abstract representation of a program, typically an abstract syntax tree (AST) or an Intermediate Representation (IR), into the target machine code or another lower-level representation.
Here is an overview of the code generation process in the language implementation process:
Input: The input to the code generation phase is the high-level representation of the program obtained from the previous phases of the compiler, such as lexical analysis, syntactic analysis, and semantic analysis. This representation is typically an AST that captures the program’s structure and semantics.
Intermediate Representation (IR): In some compilers, an Intermediate Representation (IR) is used as an intermediary step between the high-level representation and the target code generation. The IR is a lower-level, platform-independent representation of the program that simplifies the code generation process.
Target machine description: The code generation process heavily depends on ...