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3
Code Generation Architecture
Code Generation Concepts
The Target Language Compiler uses a target language that is a general
programming language, and you can use it as such. It is important, however,
to remember that the Target Language Compiler was designed for one purpose:
to convert a model.rtw file to generated code. Thus, the target language
provides many features that are particularly useful for this task but does not
provide some of the features that other languages like C provide.
Before you start modifying or creating target files for use within the Real-Time
Workshop, you might find some of the following general programming
examples useful to familiarize yourself with the basic constructs used within
the Target Language Compiler.
Output Streams
The typical “Hello World” example is rather simple in the target language.
Type the following in a file named hello.tlc
%selectfile STDOUT
Hello, World
To run this Target Language Compiler program, type
tlc hello.tlc
at the MATLAB prompt.
This simple program demonstrates some important concepts underlying the
purpose (and hence the design) of the Target Language Compiler. Since the
primary purpose of the Target Language Compiler is to generate code, it is
output (or stream) oriented. It makes it easy to handle buffers of text and
output them easily. In the above program, the %selectfile directive tells the
Target Language Compiler to send any following text that it does not recognize
to the standard output device. All syntax that the Target Language Compiler
recognizes begins with the % character. Since Hello, World is not recognized,
it is sent directly to the output. You could just as easily change the output
destination to be a file.
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