C++ Producer Guide

March 1998

3.5. TDF generation

The TDF encoding as a bitstream is expressed as a series of macros generated by the make_tdf tool from the TDF specification database. Note that the version of the TDF database used contains a couple of corrections from the standard version:

A construct make_token_def has been added to represent a token definition.
The sort diag_tag has been added to the edge constructors.

The macros generated only handle the encoding of the construct - the construct parameters need to be encoded by hand (the C producer does something similar, but including the construct parameters). For example, make_tdf generates a macro:

	void ENC_plus ( BITSTREAM * ) ;

which encodes the plus construct (91 as 7 bits in extended format). A typical use of this macro, for adding the expressions a and b would be:

	ENC_plus ( bs ) ;
	ENC_impossible ( bs ) ;
	bs = enc_exp ( bs, a ) ;
	bs = enc_exp ( bs, b ) ;

Each function or variable is compiled to TDF as its definition is encountered. For some definitions, such as inline functions, the compilation may be deferred until it is clear whether or not the identifier has been used. There is a final pass over all identifiers during the variable analysis routines which incorporates this check. Because of the organisation of a TDF capsule it is necessary to store all of the compiled TDF in memory until the end of the program, when the complete capsule, including external tag and token names and linkage information, is written to the output file.