Cross Comparison on C Compilers' Reliability Impact on UNIX Based Fedora OS

Abstract

Software reliability has always been a concern for both software producers and consumers. Because of their role in binary code generation, compilers have significant impact on software performance. Although many works have been conducted on compilers, little is done on their impact on software reliability. Thus, people often face a void of useful knowledge when deciding which compiler to use in developing software to meet a specific reliability target.This paper tries to provide some guidance in users' compiler selection by performing cross-comparison study on popular C compilers: GCC, Intel, Sun, PGI, LLVM using the UNIX based Fedora operating system. We have used SPEC CPU2006 benchmark suite as our test set. Our results show that on average, GCC C compiler is the best while the PGI C compiler is superior to Intel on this operating system platform. And this result is consistent with user experience from our survey feedback.