Editing PIC microcontrollers (section)

===Compiler development===
While several commercial compilers are available, in 2008, Microchip released their own C compilers, C18 and C30, for the line of 18F 24F and 30/33F processors.

As of 2013, Microchip offers their XC series of compilers, for use with [[MPLAB|MPLAB X]]. Microchip will eventually phase out its older compilers, such as C18, and recommends using their XC series compilers for new designs.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.microchip.com/pagehandler/en_us/devtools/mplabxc/|title=MPLAB® XC: Compiler Solutions|website=microchip.com|access-date=7 April 2018}}</ref>

The RISC instruction set of the PIC assembly language code can make the overall flow difficult to comprehend. Judicious use of simple [[macro (computer science)|macros]] can increase the readability of PIC assembly language. For example, the original [[Parallax, Inc. (company)|Parallax]] PIC assembler ("SPASM") has macros, which hide W and make the PIC look like a two-address machine. It has macro instructions like <code>mov b, a</code> (move the data from address ''a'' to address ''b'') and <code>add b, a</code> (add data from address ''a'' to data in address ''b''). It also hides the skip instructions by providing three-operand branch macro instructions, such as <code>cjne a, b, dest</code> (compare ''a'' with ''b'' and jump to ''dest'' if they are not equal).