Everything about Code generation (compiler)

🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path

1. Read the overview: Code generation (compiler)A 5-minute orientation
2. Skim a recent paper: Formally Verified Native Code Generation in an Effectful JIT: Turning the CompCert Backend into a Formally Verified JIT CompilerInfluential work since 2022
3. Pick up a classic book: The compiler design handbookThe most-reprinted book on the subject
4. Read the landmark paper: Retargetable Compiler Code GenerationCited 59 times
5. Go sideways: History of compiler constructionA closely related topic
6. Go sideways: CompilerA closely related topic

🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)

• Retargetable Compiler Code Generation

  Mahadevan Ganapathi, Charles N. Fischer, John L. Hennessy · 1982 · ACM Computing Surveys · 59 citations

• The Intel IA-64 compiler code generator

  J. Bharadwaj, W.Y. Chen, W. Chuang · 2000 · IEEE Micro · 33 citations

• Program analysis and code generation in an APL/370 compiler

  Wai-Mee Ching · 1986 · IBM Journal of Research and Development · 30 citations

• Code Generation in the Columbia Esterel Compiler

  Stephen A. Edwards, Jia Zeng · 2007 · EURASIP Journal on Embedded Systems · 25 citations

• On code generation in a PASCAL compiler

  Urs Ammann · 1977 · Software: Practice and Experience · 22 citations

• Microprocessor architectures: a comparison based on code generation by compiler

  Niklaus Wirth · 1986 · Communications of the ACM · 21 citations

• Fast, effective code generation in a just-in-time Java compiler

  Ali-Reza Adl-Tabatabai, Michał Cierniak, Guei-Yuan Lueh · 1998 · ACM SIGPLAN Notices · 17 citations

• Compiler-based code generation and autotuning for geometric multigrid on GPU-accelerated supercomputers

  Protonu Basu, Samuel Williams, Brian Van Straalen · 2017 · Parallel Computing · 16 citations

🆕 Influential since 2022

• Formally Verified Native Code Generation in an Effectful JIT: Turning the CompCert Backend into a Formally Verified JIT Compiler

  Aurèle Barrière, Sandrine Blazy, David Pichardie · 2023 · Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages · 13 citations

• Automatic compiler/interpreter generation from programs for Domain-Specific Languages: Code bloat problem and performance improvement

  Željko Kovačević, Miha Ravber, Shih-Hsi Liu · 2022 · Journal of Computer Languages · 4 citations

• Finding Compiler Bugs through Cross-Language Code Generator and Differential Testing

  Qiong Feng, Xiaotian Ma, Ziyuan Feng · 2025 · Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages · 4 citations

• Threaded Code Generation with a Meta-Tracing JIT Compiler.

  Yusuke Izawa, Hidehiko Masuhara, Carl Friedrich Bolz-Tereick · 2022 · The Journal of Object Technology · 1 citations

• Code Generation Techniques in Compiler Design: Conceptual and Structural Review

  JOHNSON Oluwatobi Akanbi, ALLEN Akinkitan Ajose, KAREEM Afiss Emiola · 2022 · International Journal of Recent Engineering Science · 0 citations

📚 Books worth reading

• The compiler design handbookY. N. Srikant, P. Shankar · 2002
• The compiler design handbookPriti Shankar · 2007
• Principles of CompilersYunlin Su · 2011
• 📕Report on the validity of 16 NYCRR Part 815New York (State). Legislature. Administrative Regulations Review Commission. · 1991
• 📕Code generator writing systemsHans Lunell · 1983
• The compiler design handbook · 2007
• 📕International Symposium on Code Generation and OptimizationInternational Symposium on Code Generation and Optimization (3rd 2005 San Jose, Calif.) · 2005
• 📕International Symposium on Code Generation and Optimization · 2002

Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.

🔗 Related topics

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• Lexical analysis Lexical tokenization is conversion of a text into (semantically or syntactically) meaningful lexical tokens belonging to categories defined by a "lexer"…
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