Translator instead of a compiler

[Gentoopc]

Hello, dear forum))) Tell me, is it possible that the user did not use gcc when building linux kernel modules? is it possible to use a translator? you write the module code to a file

[pingtoo]

[Hu]

Yes, you can in some cases use clang instead of gcc to compile kernel modules. You must use the same compiler for both the kernel and the modules, and there may be some Kconfig options that clang does not handle. Support for that is much better in recent kernels, but I'm not sure if clang can be used for arbitrary kernel builds yet.

You can put your code in a file of any name you choose, but if it is not a known extension, you will need to tell the compiler what source language to expect.

[logrusx]

If we want to be precise, the compiler is actually a translator. The term compiling came from the ancient days when you had to literally compile your program. I don't want to go in details because I don't really remember those days, but in general there were sheets of paper, punch cards, magnetic tapes and so on. Compilation refers more to the method of producing the source code than to the process of translating it to binary code.

So the programs we call compilers today are in reality translators.

The programs we call translators today are... well translators. The term translation means that one form of code is translated to another which covers source to binary translation and we only use compilation for that process for historical reasons, much like we use dye for integrated circuits and CPU's and similar things.

Technically it is possible to write a program that would run the kernel from source code, practically that would be wildly inefficient, would consume a terrible amount of memory and computing power and is in fact meaningless.

I guess you have an underlying idea or question that you think can be addressed through this question but you better ask the underlying question, you may receive more relevant answer.

Best Regards,
Georgi

[szatox]

[Gentoopc]