Cint: A RISC Interpreter for the C Programming Language

Abstract

CinrisaninterpretationsystetnfortheCprogramming language. Like most interpretation systems, it provides "load and go" type execution as well as enhanced debugging and performance mralysis tools. Cintconsistsoftwo phases--a tramlatorand an interpreter. Thetranslatorcornpilestlresourceprogram intocodeforavirtualmachine. Theinterpretathen loads and executes this code. While providing services similar to traditional interpreters. Ciut differs from them in two important ways. First, the virtual machine languages used by many interpreters are quite large; machines with 100 to 200 operations are common. In contrast, Cint's virtual machine has only 63 operations. Second. to achieve acceptable execution speeds, interpreters are often implemented in the assembly language of the host machine. Cint, however. is written entirely in C and is therefore portable. In fact, it has been transported to four machines without modification. Despite the compmt size of the virtual machine language and the high-level language implementation, Cint's execution speed is comparable to that of other interpreters. This paper describes the design of the virtual machine, the implementation of theinterpreter, and the performance of the system. fl'hiawmkwunxpponedmpInbydteNetimalSdmeeFomdstion underGrantC(R-8611653. Note: Abstract extracted from PDF file via OCR