Re: gcc 2.95 vs 3.21 performance

Jeff Garzik
2003-02-10T02:05:09Z

Neil Booth wrote:
> Jeff Muizelaar wrote:-
>
>
>>There is also tcc (http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/tcc/)
>>It claims to support gcc-like inline assembler, appears to be much
>>smaller and faster than gcc. Plus it is GPL so the liscense isn't a
>>problem either.
>
>
> It doesn't expand macros correctly, however, and accepts an enormous
> range of invalid code without a single diagnostic. I'm pretty sure
> it's arithmetic rules are incorrect, too. It's certainly nowhere
> near C89 compliance.

100% agreed.

However, for our purposes, TinyCC is only missing two pieces needed for
successfully building a bootable kernel:

* __builtin_constant_p
* function inlining

Given the existing TinyCC source base, function inlining is a big step
(since tcc doesn't do AST-like things currently), so don't expect that
very soon. TinyCC is a fun little project to watch and play around
with, though, and can compile most major open source projects, as well
as itself.

Jeff