Hi all, I read that gcc is written in C language and can compile itself. But I did not understand how it will happen.Can anyone explain me how can a program compile itself? Regards, sharmila
http://www.network-theory.co.uk/docs/gccintro/gccintro_5.html In the link menctioned above, in 2nd para, there is a statement " GCC is written in C with a strong focus on portability, and can compile itself, so it can be adapted to new systems easily. " what does this mean? If we wrote a c-program, the compiler has to understand c-syntax, if the compiler itself is in C then how do it know which syntax it has to follow.
Its an incremental development. Say I have a language X (could be an assembly as well) where I write the initial stages of the compiler and then use that compiler to develop the program itself. Now the final C compiler of GCC is developed in C and it could so happen that the initial module is also advanced to the C language.
