Only 3 real C++ parsers [LWN.net]

Only 3 real C++ parsers

Posted Jan 29, 2010 16:47 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954)
In reply to: LCA: Static analysis with GCC plugins by roc
Parent article: LCA: Static analysis with GCC plugins

IBM's C++ compiler also has its own front end.

Meaning what (I don't know what a front end is)? Does it use one of the three stated real C++ parsers? Does it have its own parser which, like Sun's isn't real because it can't parse standard C++?

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Only 3 real C++ parsers

Posted Jan 30, 2010 18:21 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Front end: the thing which takes a high-level language (e.g. C++) and
yields a language-independent, relatively machine-independent
representation for optimization and translation into machine-dependent
form. (In recent versions of GCC, this intermediate representation is
GIMPLE).

(There is no formal name for this machine-independent part that I know of,
but I've always heard it referred to as the 'middle-end'. A thousand
toplogists may scream in pain but language doesn't need to make
sense. :) )