Do all C++ compilers generate C code?

Question

Probably a pretty vague and broad question, but do all C++ compilers compile code into C first before compiling them into machine code?

Answer 1

This is not defined by the standard. Certainly, compiling to C-source is a reasonable way to do it. It only requires the destination platform to have a C-compiler with a reasonable degree of compliance, so it is a highly portable way of doing things. The downside is speed. Probably compilation speed and perhaps also execution speed (due to loads of casts for e.g. virtual functions that prevents the compiler to optimise fully) will suffer. Not that long ago there was a company that had a very nice C++ compiler doing exactly that. Unfortunately, I do not remember the name of the company and a short google did not bring the name back. The owner of the company was an active participant in the ISO C++ committee and you could test your code directly on the homepage, which also had some quite decent ressources about C++. Edit: one of my fellow posters just reminded me. I was talking about Comeau, of course.