Generating machine specific optimizing compilers

Abstract

A number of compiler parts can benefit from customization based upon the target architecture. While much of the current portable compiler work limits this customization to code generation, allocation, and perhaps scheduling, the TOAST (Tailored Optimization And Semantic Translation) compiler architecture demonstrates that virtually all phases of the compiler can benefit from knowledge of the machine architecture. The TOAST machine compiler is written as an attribute grammar using Linguist. This compiler has been designed with facilities for experimentation.