[1]: Clang, on the other hand, is not the case (at least the modern one). The `clang` program is a compiler driver and compiler AND assembler for majority of the platforms.
This framing is more likely to cause confusion than not, I think. `clang` is a compiler driver. `clang -cc1` is the compiler, and `clang -cc1as` is the assembler. They may all be the same executable, but the distinction between the tools is basically the first thing that happens. (Also note that the -cc1/-cc1as option has to be the very first option, it's not recognized in any other position).
Other projects are included in LLVM. Clang is the C/C++ compiler. There is a C standard library, an OpenCL standard library, a C++ standard library (all inventively named lib<language>). There is also a library to support compiler builtins called compiler-rt, and a library to support OpenMP called openmp, and an implementation of C++ parallel executors in pstl. There is also a linker (lld) and a debugger (lldb). There is also a machine code optimizer called bolt, and yet another compiler framework called MLIR. Finally, there are several different Fortran compilers all called flang (don't ask).
Llvm is everywhere. There’s a good chance llvm compiled some or all of the software you’re using to read this comment.
I mean, that's not the reason Rust is as fast as C. It's because Rust semantically doesn't include mandatory slower things.
The compiler it uses is an implementation detail.
um, gcc does all those things.
- in the process
- in a fork of the process
- in a child process
The outcome to me is the same.
> is one of my favorite things to tell newbie compiler engineers.
Being ignorant is cute until its your job to be an engineer and fix problems.
All `gcc` does is parse come command-line options and then invoke other programs to do the actual job of preprocessing, compiling, assembling, and linking.