7 Passes and Files of the Compiler

This chapter is dedicated to giving an overview of the optimization and code generation passes of the compiler. In the process, it describes some of the language front end interface, though this description is no where near complete.

• Parsing pass: The language front end turns text into bits.
• Gimplification pass: The bits are turned into something we can optimize.
• Pass manager: Sequencing the optimization passes.
• Tree-SSA passes: Optimizations on a high-level representation.
• RTL passes: Optimizations on a low-level representation.