code generation - GCC: assembly instruction lifecycle -
did ever meet description (article, tutorial) of how assembly instruction born , transformed in gcc? how (its ir predecessor, correct) appears during expand process, goes through rtl passes, becomes more , more target specific, etc. would grateful links! first, of gcc optimizations happens in middle-end, on gimple intermediate representations (i.e. optimization pass transforms gimple gimple). later, in back-end layer (at rtl level) assembler instructions generated. in fact, you'll better think in terms of gcc internal representations (mostly, gimple) in terms of assembly instruction lifecycle (nearly meaningless). you might compile -fdump-tree-all (and optimization flags, e.g. -o1 ) , might customize gcc melt (note: main author of melt). the indian gcc resource center contains lot of resources related gcc. my gcc melt documentation page contains many links , slides describing gcc internals. see this answer.
