[Mono-list] Gcc summit...interesting stuff

[Chris Lattner]

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 pbaena@uol.com.ar wrote:

>
> > If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me, though response
> > might be slow due to the holidays.
> >
> > -Chris
>
> Well, I guess the most important question would be: How hard could it be
> to make it target IL code?

Here's the response I sent to Miguel:

While possible, it would be _very_ difficult.  LLVM code is more
expressive/low-level than CIL code: for example array bounds checks are
not implicit, and there is no object model.  I'm not sure exactly how you
would map general C programs onto the managed runtime at least, much less
general LLVM programs.  The best way to do this would be to make a _new_
C/C++ compiler like Microsoft did, which adds language restrictions for
managed mode.

On the other hand, we've been talking about implementing a CIL front-end
for LLVM, which is possible because LLVM is lower-level than CIL.  This
would also have the advantage that all of the IPO and other features of
LLVM could be directly applied to CIL code.

-Chris

-- 
http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu/
http://www.nondot.org/~sabre/Projects/