gcc and assembly

[Claudio Bley]

>>>>> "Stephen" == Stephen Turner <artic_knight@yahoo.com> writes:

    Stephen> i heard you can optimize the code to assembly, 

No, it is just a translation (compilation) into just another
language. This by itself does not lead to a performance gain in any
way.

There are four stages when producing executable files: preprocess,
compile, assemble, link. You may tell gcc to stop after the
compilation step, which will produce assembler output.

    Stephen> i also heard the more you optimize the bigger it gets? 

This depends on the optimization methods used and on the code. But
yes, this may be the case.

    Stephen> i wanted to optimize linux into the pure asm code, 
    Stephen> so that it would be smaller faster and cleaner, 
    Stephen> well maybe not cleaner but smaller and faster. 

This is an illusion. You can't do that without getting your hands
dirty (e.g. by hand writing asm code).

    Stephen> whats the command to do this if there is one?  

RTFM. 'gcc -S <file*>' will produce assembler code for each
non-assembler input file specified.

HTH
Claudio