Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!think!ames!amdahl!pacbell!att!dptg!pegasus!psrc
From: psrc@pegasus.ATT.COM (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: C++ Translator
Summary: answer to a frequently asked question
Message-ID: <4242@pegasus.ATT.COM>
Date: 11 Nov 89 04:48:15 GMT
References: <1989Oct26.185017.17458@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 22

In article <1989Oct26.185017.17458@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu>,
sarrau@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (Santosh R Rau) writes:
> 	Is the AT&T ver 2.0 a compiler or a translator?

*sigh*  If anyone's collecting answers to frequently asked C++
questions, here's grist for your mill.

The AT&T C++ Language System, release 2.0, provides a C++ translator
called "cfront".  It is *not* a preprocessor in the sense that Ratfor
is; instead, cfront completely parses its C++ input.  To this extent,
cfront is a "true compiler".

cfront generates C code, not assembler or machine language.  This makes
it easy to port cfront to just about any system with a C compiler.  It
also lengthens compile times.

There are both native-code C++ compilers and integrated C++ development
environments on the market for different platforms.  cfront is neither.

Paul S. R. Chisholm, AT&T Bell Laboratories
att!pegasus!psrc, psrc@pegasus.att.com, AT&T Mail !psrchisholm
I'm not speaking for the company, I'm just speaking my mind.