28796, "bradcray", "Rename '--savec' flag to generalize it?", "2026-05-12T16:29:57Z"
[split off from #18602]
Since introducing the LLVM back-end, it's been suggested that the name of the --savec flag should be updated since it's not really C code that's being saved. Even with the C back-end --savec is a little incomplete in that it's not just the C code that's saved. As John noted in Revise compiler flags and the `--help` output for LLVM-by-default · Issue #18602 · chapel-lang/chapel · GitHub
The --savec flag name is a bit misleading -- it doesn't just save the source files in the specified directory but it does the build there too. I didn't expect that.
This issue is designed to capture that request, where other options might be things like --save-tmpdir, --save-intermediate[s], --save-codegen or the like.
As is often the case determining the new flag name is probably the hardest part of this issue.