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Contributions
The optimizations provided by MLRISC are at a similar level to
those performed by the Impact compiler; several target back ends
exist (Dec Alpha, HPPA, Sparc, x86, and PPC); but more importantly, the
framework has been demonstrated in real use
for languages with radically different execution models. These include:
Compiler | Association |
SML/NJ | Bell Labs and Princeton |
TIL | CMU |
Tiger | Princeton |
C-- | OGI |
SML/Regions | DIKU |
Moby | Bell Labs |
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The strength of MLRISC lies in the ability to easily create high
quality code generator for each of these systems. For example:
- Tiger:
- Has an execution
model very similar to C with stack allocated activation frames,
and also maintains static and dynamic chains to support lexical
scoping.
- TIL:
- Is similar to C in its
use of activation frames, however it uses a
typed intermediate language that
supports almost tag-free
garbage collection. This has severe implications on the
interaction of spilling and garbage collection. The set of live
variables and their locations, be it registers or frame slots,
is recorded in a trace table for a specific program point. When
spilling occurs, it is necessary to adjust some of these trace
tables to reflect the new locations of live variables.
- SML/NJ:
- Has no runtime
stack, but stores all execution context in a garbage collected
heap. This arrangement imposes special requirements for spilling
registers. SML/NJ also does dynamic linking --- that is
to say, no use is made of a conventional linker, but machine
code is generated directly and linked into the interactive
environment, dynamically.
- C--:
- Is a C-like portable assembly
language used as an intermediate language for high level typed language,
and provides direct compilation support for exceptions and
precise garbage collection. In addition, it allows
interoperability with C function calls.
It is not uncommon for any of these systems to store special global
values in dedicated registers, and use their own parameter passing
and callee-save conventions. In any language that supports garbage
collection, there are also the issues of generating gc type maps,
and gc-safety in aggressive optimizations. MLRISC deals with all these
important issues by allowing customization of many aspects of the system.
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Last modified: Mon Jun 8 14:18:05 UTC 2009 by buildd@vernadsky
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