Sender: nate AT cartsys DOT com
Message-ID: <368D9C07.DF992842@cartsys.com>
Date: Fri, 01 Jan 1999 20:09:43 -0800
From: Nate Eldredge <nate AT cartsys DOT com>
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To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: parsing text to code
References: <001101be3389$c5fed160$dafde59b AT djarrett DOT nwga DOT com>
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Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com

David Jarrett wrote:
> 
> You do understand that writing a compiler means that you know machine
> language? Im not talkin about assembly, but MACHINE code :)

It needn't.  GCC, for instance, knows only about assembly language,
since that's what it outputs.  It's the assembler, to which its output
is passed, that must know about machine code.  Some compilers integrate
these two passes, but it makes things much easier if you don't. 
Besides, this way you don't have to rewrite the assembler.

And machine code is not necessarily as scary as you seem to imply.  Once
you know assembly language, the machine code is just a matter of looking
up a lot of numbers and bitfields in a book.  Tedious, yes; difficult,
not really.
-- 

Nate Eldredge
nate AT cartsys DOT com