From:	"Peter S'heeren" <petersh AT pimc DOT be>
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject:	New language
Date:	Fri, 23 Apr 1999 10:01:22 +0200
Organization:	EUnet Belgium, Leuven, Belgium
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Message-ID:	<372028D1.B707059B@pimc.be>
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To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway:	from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Reply-To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com

Hello guys & girls

I'm making a compiler for a new programming language I created myself.
Ofcourse I use DJGPP to get the job done. My intention is to make the
compiler part of the GNU software pool. But before I can do so, there
are a few serious considerations:

* The language supports all target environments, not only 32/64-bit
machines/VMs with 8-bit words being addressed. This means it can handle
all possible addressing widths (linear addr. space), all possible word
widths, and big and little endianness. Also, the language supports
unsigned and signed integer types of any bit-length. The same for the
fixed and floating point type. I looked at the ELF, COFF and OMF object
formats, but none of them seems to satisfy the language's needs. Does
anyone know a object format that's capable of doing all this stuff ? Or
do I have to make a new object format ?

* The language compiles to modules (not object files), comparable to the
units in Borland Pascal but not the same. There is no distinction
between compiling and linking, it's all done at the same time. To
compile a whole bunch of module sources, only one compilation/linking
phase is performed. The result is a one object file. That object is
linked together with another object file (that contains the startup
code) to a binary. Is it meaningfull to use gcc as a frontend for my
language, considering the compilation/linking process ? And if it is,
are there documents available that describe how it must be done ?

Peter S'heeren

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