Integrated into RIDE
The RC-XA 'C' Compiler is fully integrated into the RIDE IDE. This interface allows development of projects simultaneously for the 8051 and XA, if appropriate tools have been purchased.

A super-set of ANSI-C and C-51
RC-XA implements the continuously evolving ANSI Standards for the 'C' language.

It has been expanded with keywords that are specific to the XA, and has powerful new directives. Moreover, every C-51 file can be accepted without modification, with some RC-51 directives and pragmas that inappropriate for the XA simply being ignored by RC-XA.

The additional keywords above the ANSI-C standard are shown below:

While respecting the requirements of the ANSI standard, RC-XA has several options or pragmas that allow the programmer to make best use of the XA core architecture.

Memory models

Five memory models are available:

Base types

Integer Types :

• 8 bits : " signed char " and " unsigned char "

• 16 bits : " signed int " and " unsigned int "

• 32 bits : " signed long " and " unsigned long "

Real Types :

• 32 bits  : " float " (IEEE754 single precision)

Pointer types

According to the memory model, and the user's options, RC-XA manipulates different kinds of pointers. 'Generic' pointers may point to either CODE or DATA space but result in a run-time overhead, while 'space qualified' pointers permit faster execution when using specific memory spaces. For best performance "near" pointers have 16-bits and the "far" pointers have 24-bits.

Optimizations

RC-XA is an optimizing compiler, which was developed from the established RC-51 compiler and has numerous optimizations during, and after, primary code generation.

Library

RC-XA is supplied with ANSI standard libraries (for all memory models) that are written and optimized in assembler.