Function calling convention defines how control and data are passed between different subprograms. A user-retargetable compiler automatically generates the compiler by the architecture description. But the calling convention of almost user-retargetable compilers is implemented in an ad-hoc manner. To be truly user-retargetable, the calling convention also has to be implemented by the description of the specific architecture. To retarget the calling convention, the description language is designed and the general model is established. The description language is an environment to represent the specific feature of the target machine. The general model, argument placement automata is proposed to guarantee the safe data transfer. This retargeting module is based on the user-retargetable compiler, SOARGEN. Currently ARM9, TMS320C54x and DSP56000 are considered. By the calling convention retargeting, the function calling code is generated without the knowledge of the compiler infrastructure, register allocation and instruction selection.
