19 lines
1.0 KiB
Plaintext
19 lines
1.0 KiB
Plaintext
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CIL (C Intermediate Language) is a high-level representation along
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with a set of tools that permit easy analysis and source-to-source
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transformation of C programs.
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CIL is both lower-level than abstract-syntax trees, by clarifying
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ambiguous constructs and removing redundant ones, and also higher-level
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than typical intermediate languages designed for compilation, by
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maintaining types and a close relationship with the source program.
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The main advantage of CIL is that it compiles all valid C programs
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into a few core constructs with a very clean semantics. Also CIL
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has a syntax-directed type system that makes it easy to analyze and
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manipulate C programs. Furthermore, the CIL front-end is able to
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process not only ANSI-C programs but also those using Microsoft C
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or GNU C extensions. If you do not use CIL and want instead to use
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just a C parser and analyze programs expressed as abstract-syntax
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trees then your analysis will have to handle a lot of ugly corners
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of the language (let alone the fact that parsing C itself is not a
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trivial task).
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