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Author Topic: Compiler and linker functionality on a DLL  (Read 3706 times)

ivanhv

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Compiler and linker functionality on a DLL
« on: March 20, 2006, 02:24:28 AM »
Dear Pelles,

I'm interested on doing a compiler myself. I'm thinking in a language similar to Boo (a kind of static python), providing type inference, support for generics, functional constructs, regular expresions supported by the language and a collection of basic libraries.

As I'm too lazy and I don't have time enough, I don't want to harness with assembly generation or object code linkage. So I thought in generating code in a language high level enough so I could employ it for back generating code for multiple platforms. I found C a good option for this.

Of course, my first option was a GCC preprocessor. But I don't really care supporting multiple platforms. The main requirement is on supporting Windows on desktop and embedded. At the time of writing this, yours is the only compiler providing this (I'd like to avoid Microsoft compilers and although some efforts exist on a GCC compiler for Pocket PC, there is no real work yet).

But I'd like to have my own IDE, because I were thinking on integrating the syntax on a graphical design schema (as if you were binding C++ and UML).

I'd like to launch compilation and linkage phases from my IDE, and would like to avoid the console. Of course, I could launch a process with your compiler running, hiding the console and capturing outputs from the compiler, but it would be great if I could avoid console.

Could your tools have their functionalities within a DLL, and have the EXE as wrappers to this DLL? As I don't know how much effort this could represent, I'll understand if you say "absolutly not!", but I'd like you taking this into consideration, as it could benefit you too (wouldn't it be great if you could launch compilation from your IDE and not having to worry about having to launch a different process for this?)

Offline Pelle

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Re: Compiler and linker functionality on a DLL
« Reply #1 on: March 21, 2006, 07:54:53 PM »
Quote from: "ivanhv"
Could your tools have their functionalities within a DLL, and have the EXE as wrappers to this DLL? As I don't know how much effort this could represent, I'll understand if you say "absolutly not!", but I'd like you taking this into consideration, as it could benefit you too (wouldn't it be great if you could launch compilation from your IDE and not having to worry about having to launch a different process for this?)

I still have to/want to support building from the command line, so it's actually easier for me to just launch the command-line tools from the IDE, rather than calling some DLL-version of it. Also, it's possible to modify the build commands for a project in the IDE, like calling an arbitrary EXE, so I really have to do it they way I do...

(The resource compiler is the exception to this - it *is* divided into an EXE + DLL, where the DLL is also used by the IDE, but calling this DLL actually requires *more* code than the generic "launch a process" code...)

Pelle
/Pelle