C-- (intermediate language)
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C-- is an intermediate language, intended to be emitted by compilers instead of the C programming language or machine-specific assembly language. The language's syntax borrows heavily from C, hence the name from C's unary destructive decrement operator to denote that it is almost a subset of C, analogous to C++ almost being a superset of C.
The language is designed as an intermediate language between high-level compiler tools and low-level optimisers. The features which are omitted or changed from standard C, including variadic functions, pointer syntax, and the higher-level parts of C's type system, hamper certain essential features of C--, such as tail-call optimisation, and the ease with which code-generation tools can produce it.
C-- is a target platform for the Glasgow Haskell Compiler, and will eventually become the main platform. Some of C--'s developers, including Simon Peyton Jones, also work on GHC. The codebase and development is based at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, though it is not a Microsoft project.
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