Editing Intermediate representation (section)

=== Languages ===
Though not explicitly designed as an intermediate language, [[C (programming language)|C]]'s nature as an abstraction of [[Assembly language|assembly]] and its ubiquity as the ''de facto'' [[System programming language|system language]] in [[Unix-like]] and other operating systems has made it a popular intermediate language: [[Eiffel (programming language)|Eiffel]], [[Sather]], [[Esterel]], some [[Programming language dialect|dialect]]s of [[Lisp (programming language)|Lisp]] ([[Lush (programming language)|Lush]], [[Gambit (Scheme implementation)|Gambit]]), [[Squeak]]'s Smalltalk-subset Slang, [[Nim (programming language)|Nim]], [[Cython]], [[Seed7]], [[SystemTap]], [[Vala (programming language)|Vala]], V, and others make use of C as an intermediate language. Variants of C have been designed to provide C's features as a portable [[assembly language]], including [[C--]] and the [[C Intermediate Language]].

Any language targeting a [[virtual machine]] or [[p-code machine]] can be considered an intermediate language:
* [[Java bytecode]]
* Microsoft's [[Common Intermediate Language]] is an intermediate language designed to be shared by all compilers for the [[.NET Framework]], before static or dynamic compilation to machine code.
* While most intermediate languages are designed to support statically typed languages, the [[Parrot intermediate representation]] is designed to support dynamically typed languages—initially Perl and Python.
* [[IBM i#TIMI|TIMI]] is used by compilers on the [[IBM i]] platform.
* [[O-code]] for [[BCPL]]
* [[MATLAB]] precompiled code
* [[Microsoft P-Code]]
* [[Pascal (programming language)|Pascal]] [[p-code]]

The [[GNU Compiler Collection]] (GCC) uses several intermediate languages internally to simplify portability and [[cross-compilation]]. Among these languages are
* the historical [[Register Transfer Language]] (RTL)
* the tree language [[GNU Compiler Collection#GENERIC and GIMPLE|GENERIC]]
* the [[SSA (computing)|SSA]]-based [[GIMPLE]]. (Lower-level than GENERIC; input for most optimizers; has a compact "bytecode" notation.)

GCC supports generating these IRs, as a final target:
* [[HSA Intermediate Layer]]
* [[LLVM#Intermediate representation|LLVM Intermediate Representation]] (converted from GIMPLE in the now-defunct llvm-gcc which uses LLVM optimizers and codegen)

The [[LLVM]] compiler framework is based on the [[LLVM#Intermediate representation|LLVM IR]] intermediate language, of which the compact, binary serialized representation is also referred to as "bitcode" and has been productized by Apple.<ref name="Apple's bitcode">{{cite web | url=https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9684223 | title=Bitcode (iOS, watchOS) | publisher=Hacker News | date=10 June 2015 | access-date=17 June 2015}}</ref><ref name="LLVM Bitcode">{{cite web | url=http://llvm.org/docs/BitCodeFormat.html | title=LLVM Bitcode File Format | publisher=llvm.org | access-date=17 June 2015}}</ref> Like GIMPLE Bytecode, LLVM Bitcode is useful in link-time optimization. Like GCC, LLVM also targets some IRs meant for direct distribution, including Google's [[Native Client|PNaCl]] IR and [[Standard Portable Intermediate Representation|SPIR]]. A further development within LLVM is the use of ''Multi-Level Intermediate Representation'' ([[MLIR (software)|MLIR]]) with the potential to generate code for different heterogeneous targets, and to combine the outputs of different compilers.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://mlir.llvm.org/ |title = MLIR}}</ref>

The ILOC intermediate language<ref>
[http://www.engr.sjsu.edu/wbarrett/Parser/simManual.htm "An ILOC Simulator"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090507084132/http://www.engr.sjsu.edu/wbarrett/Parser/simManual.htm |date=2009-05-07 }}
by W. A. Barrett 2007, paraphrasing Keith Cooper and Linda Torczon, "Engineering a Compiler", [[Morgan Kaufmann]], 2004. {{ISBN|1-55860-698-X}}.</ref> is used in classes on compiler design as a simple target language.<ref>[http://www.cis.udel.edu/~pollock/471/project2spec.pdf "CISC 471 Compiler Design"] by Uli Kremer</ref>