B::CC
B::CC(3) Perl Programmers Reference Guide B::CC(3)
NAME
B::CC - Perl compiler's optimized C translation backend
SYNOPSIS
perl -MO=CC[,OPTIONS] foo.pl
DESCRIPTION
This compiler backend takes Perl source and generates C source code
corresponding to the flow of your program. In other words, this backend
is somewhat a "real" compiler in the sense that many people think about
compilers. Note however that, currently, it is a very poor compiler in
that although it generates (mostly, or at least sometimes) correct
code, it performs relatively few optimisations. This will change as
the compiler develops. The result is that running an executable com-
piled with this backend may start up more quickly than running the
original Perl program (a feature shared by the C compiler backend--see
B::C) and may also execute slightly faster. This is by no means a good
optimising compiler--yet.
OPTIONS
If there are any non-option arguments, they are taken to be names of
objects to be saved (probably doesn't work properly yet). Without
extra arguments, it saves the main program.
-ofilename
Output to filename instead of STDOUT
-v Verbose compilation (currently gives a few compilation statistics).
-- Force end of options
-uPackname
Force apparently unused subs from package Packname to be compiled.
This allows programs to use eval "foo()" even when sub foo is never
seen to be used at compile time. The down side is that any subs
which really are never used also have code generated. This option
is necessary, for example, if you have a signal handler foo which
you initialise with "$SIG{BAR} = "foo"". A better fix, though, is
just to change it to "$SIG{BAR} = \&foo". You can have multiple -u
options. The compiler tries to figure out which packages may possi-
bly have subs in which need compiling but the current version
doesn't do it very well. In particular, it is confused by nested
packages (i.e. of the form "A::B") where package "A" does not con-
tain any subs.
-mModulename
Instead of generating source for a runnable executable, generate
source for an XSUB module. The boot_Modulename function (which
DynaLoader can look for) does the appropriate initialisation and
runs the main part of the Perl source that is being compiled.
-D Debug options (concatenated or separate flags like "perl -D").
-Dr Writes debugging output to STDERR just as it's about to write to
the program's runtime (otherwise writes debugging info as comments
in its C output).
-DO Outputs each OP as it's compiled
-Ds Outputs the contents of the shadow stack at each OP
-Dp Outputs the contents of the shadow pad of lexicals as it's loaded
for each sub or the main program.
-Dq Outputs the name of each fake PP function in the queue as it's
about to process it.
-Dl Output the filename and line number of each original line of Perl
code as it's processed ("pp_nextstate").
-Dt Outputs timing information of compilation stages.
-f Force optimisations on or off one at a time.
-ffreetmps-each-bblock
Delays FREETMPS from the end of each statement to the end of the
each basic block.
-ffreetmps-each-loop
Delays FREETMPS from the end of each statement to the end of the
group of basic blocks forming a loop. At most one of the
freetmps-each-* options can be used.
-fomit-taint
Omits generating code for handling perl's tainting mechanism.
-On Optimisation level (n = 0, 1, 2, ...). -O means -O1. Currently,
-O1 sets -ffreetmps-each-bblock and -O2 sets -ffreetmps-each-loop.
EXAMPLES
perl -MO=CC,-O2,-ofoo.c foo.pl
perl cc_harness -o foo foo.c
Note that "cc_harness" lives in the "B" subdirectory of your perl
library directory. The utility called "perlcc" may also be used to help
make use of this compiler.
perl -MO=CC,-mFoo,-oFoo.c Foo.pm
perl cc_harness -shared -c -o Foo.so Foo.c
BUGS
Plenty. Current status: experimental.
DIFFERENCES
These aren't really bugs but they are constructs which are heavily tied
to perl's compile-and-go implementation and with which this compiler
backend cannot cope.
Loops
Standard perl calculates the target of "next", "last", and "redo" at
run-time. The compiler calculates the targets at compile-time. For
example, the program
sub skip_on_odd { next NUMBER if $_[0] % 2 }
NUMBER: for ($i = 0; $i < 5; $i++) {
skip_on_odd($i);
print $i;
}
produces the output
024
with standard perl but gives a compile-time error with the compiler.
Context of ".."
The context (scalar or array) of the ".." operator determines whether
it behaves as a range or a flip/flop. Standard perl delays until
runtime the decision of which context it is in but the compiler needs
to know the context at compile-time. For example,
@a = (4,6,1,0,0,1);
sub range { (shift @a)..(shift @a) }
print range();
while (@a) { print scalar(range()) }
generates the output
456123E0
with standard Perl but gives a compile-time error with compiled Perl.
Arithmetic
Compiled Perl programs use native C arithemtic much more frequently
than standard perl. Operations on large numbers or on boundary cases
may produce different behaviour.
Deprecated features
Features of standard perl such as $[ which have been deprecated in
standard perl since Perl5 was released have not been implemented in the
compiler.
AUTHOR
Malcolm Beattie, "mbeattie@sable.ox.ac.uk"
perl v5.8.6 2001-09-21 B::CC(3)
