Depends on what you mean by "portable assembler". It is exactly that in a lot of ways, but exactly not that in others. I think it's more useful to say that C i

Depends on what you mean by "portable assembler". It is exactly that in a lot of ways, but exactly not that in others. I think it's more useful to say that C is a portable assembler, than it is to say that it isn't, considering how it's used in practice and the sort of nasty things C compilers do in order to make that possible.