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SDCC (Small Device C Compiler)
is a Freeware, retargettable, optimizing ANSI-C compiler by Sandeep
Dutta designed for 8 bit Microprocessors. The current version targets
Intel MCS51 based Microprocessors (8031, 8032, 8051, 8052,
etc.), Dallas DS80C390 variants, Motorola HC08 and Zilog Z80 based
MCUs. It can be retargetted for other microprocessors, support for
Microchip PIC, Atmel AVR is under development. The entire source code
for the compiler is distributed under GPL. SDCC uses ASXXXX & ASLINK,
a Freeware, retargettable assembler & linker. SDCC has extensive
language extensions suitable for utilizing various microcontrollers
and underlying hardware effectively.
In addition to the MCU specific optimizations SDCC also does a host
of standard optimizations like:
- global sub expression elimination,
- loop optimizations (loop invariant, strength reduction of induction
variables and loop reversing),
- constant folding & propagation,
- copy propagation,
- dead code elimination
- jump tables for switch statements.
For the back-end SDCC uses a global register allocation scheme which
should be well suited for other 8 bit MCUs.
The peep hole optimizer uses a rule based substitution mechanism which
is MCU independent.
Supported data-types are:
- char (8 bits, 1 byte),
- short and int (16 bits, 2 bytes),
- long (32 bit, 4 bytes)
- float (4 byte IEEE).
The compiler also allows inline assembler code to be embedded
anywhere in a function. In addition, routines developed in assembly
can also be called.
SDCC also provides an option (--cyclomatic) to report the relative
complexity of a function. These functions can then be further optimized,
or hand coded in assembly if needed.
SDCC also comes with a companion source level debugger SDCDB, the
debugger currently uses ucSim a freeware simulator for 8051 and other
micro-controllers.
The latest version can be downloaded from http://sdcc.sourceforge.net/snap.php.Please note: the compiler will probably always be some
steps ahead of this documentation1.1.
Next: 1.2 Open Source
Up: 1. Introduction
Previous: 1. Introduction
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Bernhard Held
2004-02-21