1 Tiny C Compiler - C Scripting Everywhere - The Smallest ANSI C compiler
2 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
7 - SMALL! You can compile and execute C code everywhere, for example on
10 - FAST! tcc generates optimized x86 code. No byte code
11 overhead. Compile, assemble and link about 7 times faster than 'gcc
14 - UNLIMITED! Any C dynamic library can be used directly. TCC is
15 heading torward full ISOC99 compliance. TCC can of course compile
18 - SAFE! tcc includes an optional memory and bound checker. Bound
19 checked code can be mixed freely with standard code.
21 - Compile and execute C source directly. No linking or assembly
22 necessary. Full C preprocessor included.
24 - C script supported : just add '#!/usr/local/bin/tcc' at the first
25 line of your C source, and execute it directly from the command
33 *** TCC currently only works on Linux x86 with glibc >= 2.1 ***.
35 Type 'make install' to compile and install tcc in /usr/local/bin and
40 We assume here that you know ANSI C. Look at the example ex1.c to know
41 what the programs look like.
43 The include file <tcclib.h> can be used if you want a small basic libc
44 include support (especially useful for floppy disks). Of course, you
45 can also use standard headers, although they are slower to compile.
47 You can begin your C script with '#!/usr/local/bin/tcc' on the first
48 line and set its execute bits (chmod a+x your_script). Then, you can
49 launch the C code as a shell or perl script :-) The command line
50 arguments are put in 'argc' and 'argv' of the main functions, as in
55 ex1.c: simplest example (hello world). Can also be launched directly
56 as a script: './ex1.c'.
58 ex2.c: more complicated example: find a number with the four
59 operations given a list of numbers (benchmark).
61 ex3.c: compute fibonacci numbers (benchmark).
63 ex4.c: more complicated: X11 program. Very complicated test in fact
64 because standard headers are being used !
66 ex5.c: 'hello world' with standard glibc headers.
68 tcc.c: TCC can of course compile itself. Used to check the code
71 prog.c: auto test for TCC which tests many subtle possible bugs. Used
72 when doing 'make test'.
76 Please read tcc-doc.html to have all the features of TCC.
78 Technical Description:
81 This is not my first C compiler (see my 'fbcc' compiler) but it
82 contains the first C preprocessor I wrote. The project started as a
83 joke to make the smallest C compiler. Then I expanded it torward
84 ISOC99 compliance. This C compiler is particular because each feature
85 was added while trying to be as simple and compact as possible. For
86 example, no intermediate structure is used to store code or
89 The TCC code generator directly generates linked binary code. It is
90 rather unusual these days (see gcc for example which generates text
91 assembly), but it allows to be very fast and surprisingly not so
94 The TCC code generator is register based. It means that it could even
95 generate not so bad code for RISC processors. On x86, three temporary
96 registers are used. When more registers are needed, one register is
97 flushed in a new local variable.
99 Constant propagation is done for all operations. Multiplications and
100 divisions are optimized to shifts when appropriate. Comparison
101 operators are optimized by maintaining a special cache for the
102 processor flags. &&, || and ! are optimized by maintaining a special
103 'jump target' value. No other jump optimization is currently performed
104 because it would require to store the code in a more abstract fashion.
106 The types are stored in a single 'int' variable (see VT_xxx
107 constants). It was choosen in the first stages of development when tcc
108 was much simpler. Now, it may not be the best solution.
113 TCC is distributed under the GNU General Public License (see COPYING
116 License may be changed to LGPL or X11 style, so I would prefer that
117 you indicate in submitted patches that you accept such a change.