Introduction to Compiler Construction in a Java World

Appendix E

MIPS and the SPIM Simulator

E.1 Introduction

In addition to compiling j-- source programs to JVM byte code, the j-- compiler can also

produce native code for the MIPS architecture. The compiler does not actually produce

binary code that can be run on such a machine, but it produces human-readable assembly

code that can be executed by a program that simulates a MIPS machine. The advantage of

using a simulator is that one can easily debug the translated program, and does not need

access to an actual MIPS machine in order to run the program. The simulator that we will

use is called SPIM (MIPS spelled backward). Chapter 7 describes the MIPS