Organization of the Compiler

The C compilation system consists of a compiler, an assembler, and a link editor. The cc command invokes each of these components automatically unless you use command-line options to specify otherwise.

Chapter 2, cc Compiler Options," discusses all the options available with cc.

The following figure shows the organization of the C compilation system.

Figure 1-1 Organization of the C Compilation System

The following table summarizes the components of the compilation system.

Table 1-1 Components of the C Compilation System

Component	Description	Notes on Use
cpp	Preprocessor	-Xs
acomp	Compiler (preprocessor built in for non-Xs modes)
iropt	Code optimizer	(SPARC) -O, -xO [2-5], -fast
cg386	Intermediate language translator	(Intel) Always invoked
inline	Inline expansion of assembly language templates	.il file specified
mwinline	Automatic inline expansion of functions	(Intel) -xO4, -xinline
fbe	Assembler
cg	Code generator, inliner, assembler	(SPARC)
codegen	Code generator	(Intel)
ld	Linker
ild	Incremental linker	(SPARC) -g, -xildon

The C compiler optimizer removes redundancies, optimally allocates registers, schedules instructions, and reorganizes code. Select from multiple levels of optimization to obtain the best balance between application speed and use of memory.