GNU lightning
![]() | The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines for products and services. (August 2011) |
Developer(s) | GNU Project |
---|---|
Initial release | January 19, 2001[1] |
Stable release | hosted in git repository
|
Repository | |
Operating system | Cross-platform |
Platform | GNU |
Type | Just-in-time compilation |
License | GNU General Public License, GNU Lesser General Public License |
Website | http://www.gnu.org/software/lightning/ |
GNU lightning is a free software library for generating assembly language code at run-time. Newly released version 2.0[2] supports backends for SPARC (32-bit), x86 (32- and 64-bit), MIPS, ARM, ia64, HPPA and PowerPC (32-bit).
Advantages Over Other Libraries
The features GNU lightning provides make it useful for just-in-time compiler applications. In comparison to libraries such as LLVM or libJIT, GNU lightning provides only a low-level interface for assembling from a standardized RISC assembly language—loosely based on the SPARC and MIPS architectures[3]—into the target architecture's machine language.
Disadvantages
It does not provide register allocation, data-flow or control-flow analysis, or optimization.
Projects that use GNU Lightning
Racket, GNU Smalltalk, and CLISP[4] make use of GNU lightning for just-in-time compilation.
References
- ^ "ChangeLog". GNU Project. Retrieved 2009-02-22.
- ^ Release announcement. 2013-08-23
- ^ "Using and porting GNU lightning". Retrieved 2009-02-22.
- ^ "Implementation notes for GNU CLISP". Retrieved 2009-02-23.
External links