Texas Instruments Corporation

Paul Knueven

Jonathan H Shiell

Robert John Cyran

Christopher M Wolf

The present invention provides methods for facilitating the sharing of data structures in a software application written using both a high level programming language and assembly language. Methods are provided for defining a data structure in an assembly language program such that the data structure is created in exact conformance to the physical and logical memory layout mandated for a comparable data structure by a compiler for a high level language. Such methods comprise providing assembly language directives that cause the assembler to automatically adapt a data structure definition to the alignment constraints imposed by the high level language compiler.

Assembly directives for the support of multi-language programming

The present invention is a code preparation system ( ) which accepts input code ( ) in intermediate code format, our source code format which is first translated into intermediate format, analyzes the intermediate code, then provides optimization information, hints, and/or directions (collectively referred to as &ldquo;optimization information&rdquo;) for optimizing execution of the intermediate code by a code interpretive runtime environment, such as a Java Virtual Machine. The code interpretive runtime environment is operable to selectively implement the optimization information received from the code preparation system ( ). The optimization information is provided to the code interpretive runtime environment in the form of additional attributes added to a class file ( ) generated by the code preparation system ( ). Processing in accordance with the received optimization information allows the code interpretive runtime environment to execute code more efficiently and to manage use of its resources more effectively, particularly when executing in a limited resource computing environment. Such limited resource computing environments include set-top boxes, digital personal assistants, etc.

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Pittsburgh, PA, United States of America

Paul Knueven