Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!unixhub!ditka!comeau
From: comeau@ditka.Chicago.COM (Greg Comeau)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: REVIEW:  Comeau C++ compiler
Keywords: programming, language, C++, compiler
Message-ID: <37047@ditka.Chicago.COM>
Date: 18 Apr 91 15:34:54 GMT
References: <36748@ditka.Chicago.COM> <1991Apr15.170545.14190@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> <1544@tronsbox.xei.com>
Sender: comeau@ditka.chicago.com (Greg Comeau)
Reply-To: comeau@csanta.attmail.com (Greg Comeau)
Organization: Comeau Computing
Lines: 32

In article <1544@tronsbox.xei.com> tron1@tronsbox.xei.com (Kenneth Jamieson) writes:
>In article <1991Apr15.170545.14190@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> jdickson@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Jeff Dickson) writes:
>>	I am confused. Does the C++ compiler rewrite your C++ source code into
>>plain'ol C and use your old 'C' compiler to compile it or is it that it was too
>
>	The "official" AT&T Cfront program is what defines the C++
>standard. That program takes C++ and generates C.

Exactly.

But it does not pre-* it (pre-process, pre-compile, etc).  It does
total full translation.  The fact that it generates C in no way implies
anything less is occurring.  For instance, we also sell a UNIX Bourne
Shell Compiler, which generates C as its object code, and that certainly
is not a one-to-one mapping.  Neither is it in the case of C++.  In fact,
by the time it gets to output the C, the trees it generates look nothing
like C or C++.  Also, those trees would have no inherent difference to
the trees in a native code generating compiler.  In fact, that is so much
so that that has been a direction we've wanted to take Comeau C++ in for
the longest time since the portableness of the compiler has been so successful.

To all: sorry if it sounds like I'm coming on strong here in these past
few messages, but some myths float around about C++, especially when it hits
a new platform, and I'm just trying to halt them in their tracks before
they get worse.

- Greg
-- 
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