Extending GCC with new optimization

[Tomasz Jankowski]

Hello,

For one of my projects at university I have to create specific
optimization for GCC (in general I have to find arithmetic operations
in basic blocks and modify them a bit). I have some idea about
compilation process etc. but i't more theoretical then practical
knowledge.

Now I'm slowly learning about GCC internals and as I see I can
"easily" solve my problem by writing plugin in C. On the other hand I
found MELT project. At the moment I'm in point in which I'm not sure
which path I should choose: write MELT extension or write plugin in C.
I can also mention that my target is GCC 4.5.

Actually I don't know how can I treat plugins support in GCC. It's
low-level infrastructure for projects like MELT or straight way to
write static optimization?