| @@ -1,49 +1,129 @@ |
| 1 | | −Tiny C Compiler - Make the best x86 Linux C compiler in less than 8192 bytes. |
| 2 | | −----------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| 1 | +Tiny C Compiler - C Scripting Everywhere - The Smallest ANSI C compiler |
| 2 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| 3 | 3 | |
| 4 | | −Differences with ANSI C: |
| 5 | | −----------------------- |
| 4 | +Features: |
| 5 | +-------- |
| 6 | 6 | |
| 7 | | −- Preprocessor: only '#define xx yy' is supported. Recursive defined |
| 8 | | − supported. All other directives are not supported. |
| 7 | +- SMALL! You can compile and execute C code everywhere, for example on |
| 8 | + rescue disks. |
| 9 | 9 | |
| 10 | | −- Types: int, char, void, pointers and functions are |
| 11 | | − supported. Function pointers are also supported. struct, union and |
| 12 | | − typedef not supported. |
| 10 | +- FAST! tcc generates optimized x86 code. No byte code overhead. |
| 13 | 11 | |
| 14 | | −- Operations: 'x=' not supported. |
| 12 | +- UNLIMITED! Any C dynamic library can be used directly. TCC is |
| 13 | + heading torwards full ANSI C compliance. TCC can of course compile |
| 14 | + itself. |
| 15 | 15 | |
| 16 | | −- Keywords: the following keywords are supported: int void char if |
| 17 | | − else while break return for. |
| 16 | +- Compile and execute C source directly. No linking or assembly |
| 17 | + necessary. Full C preprocessor included. |
| 18 | 18 | |
| 19 | | −- Symbol scope: local variables supported, but they cannot have the |
| 20 | | − same name as global variables. |
| 19 | +- C script supported : just add '#!/usr/local/bin/tcc' at the first |
| 20 | + line of your C source, and execute it directly from the command line ! |
| 21 | 21 | |
| 22 | | −Features: |
| 23 | | −-------- |
| 22 | +- For adventurers, tcc is conceived to be able to generate code for |
| 23 | + other targets. |
| 24 | 24 | |
| 25 | | −- SMALL! You can compile and execute C code everywhere, for example on |
| 26 | | − rescue disks. |
| 25 | +Documentation: |
| 26 | +------------- |
| 27 | + |
| 28 | +1) Installation |
| 29 | + |
| 30 | +***TCC currently only work on Linux x86***. |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | +Type 'make install' to compile and install tcc in /usr/local and |
| 33 | +/usr/local/lib/tcc. |
| 34 | + |
| 35 | +2) Introduction |
| 36 | + |
| 37 | +We assume here that you know ANSI C. Look at the example ex1.c to know |
| 38 | +what the programs look like. |
| 39 | + |
| 40 | +The main limitations of tcc are that you cannot use floats. |
| 41 | + |
| 42 | +The include file <tcclib.h> can be used if you want a small basic libc |
| 43 | +include support (especially useful for floppy disks). Of course, you |
| 44 | +can also use standard headers, although they are slower to compile. |
| 45 | + |
| 46 | +You can begin your C script with '#!/usr/local/bin/tcc' on the first |
| 47 | +line and set its execute bits (chmod a+x your_script). Then, you can |
| 48 | +launch the C code as a shell or perl script :-) The command line |
| 49 | +arguments are put in 'argc' and 'argv' of the main functions, as in |
| 50 | +ANSI C. |
| 51 | + |
| 52 | +3) Invokation |
| 53 | + |
| 54 | +'-Idir' : specify an additionnal include path. The |
| 55 | +default ones are: /usr/include, /usr/lib/tcc, /usr/local/lib/tcc. |
| 56 | + |
| 57 | +'-Dsym' : define preprocessor symbol 'sym' to 1. |
| 58 | + |
| 59 | +'-lxxx' : dynamically link your program with library |
| 60 | +libxxx.so. Standard library paths are checked, including those |
| 61 | +specificed with LD_LIBRARY_PATH. |
| 62 | + |
| 63 | +Only one source code can be compiled. If you have multiple source |
| 64 | +files, add one which includes all your sources. |
| 65 | + |
| 66 | +4) Examples |
| 67 | + |
| 68 | +ex1.c: simplest example (hello world). Can also be launched directly |
| 69 | +as a script: ./ex2.c. |
| 70 | + |
| 71 | +ex2.c: more complicated example: find a number with the four |
| 72 | +operations given a list of numbers (benchmark). |
| 73 | + |
| 74 | +ex3.c: compute fibonacci numbers (benchmark). |
| 75 | + |
| 76 | +ex4.c: more complicated: X11 program. Very complicated test in fact |
| 77 | +because standard headers are being used ! Currently slow because |
| 78 | +parsing does not use hash tables. |
| 79 | + |
| 80 | +ex5.c: 'hello world' with standard glibc headers. |
| 81 | + |
| 82 | +tcc.c: TCC can compile itself. Used to check the code generator. |
| 83 | + |
| 84 | +prog.c: auto test for TCC which tests many subtle possible bugs. Used |
| 85 | +when doing 'make test'. |
| 86 | + |
| 87 | +Exact differences with ANSI C: |
| 88 | +----------------------------- |
| 89 | + |
| 90 | +1) Preprocessor |
| 91 | + |
| 92 | + - the preprocessor tokens are the same as C. It means that in some |
| 93 | + rare cases, preprocessed numbers are not handled exactly as in ANSI |
| 94 | + C. This approach has the advantage of being simpler and FAST! |
| 95 | + |
| 96 | + - __LINE__, __FILE__, __DATE__, __TIME__ are currently not handled. |
| 97 | + |
| 98 | + - #line not handled |
| 99 | + |
| 100 | +2) C language |
| 101 | + |
| 102 | +- Parsing: variables cannot be initialized ('int a = 1' or 'int tab[2] = |
| 103 | + {1, 2}' not supported). |
| 104 | + |
| 105 | +- Cannot pass struct/union as value. Cannot assign struct/union (use |
| 106 | + memcpy instead). |
| 27 | 107 | |
| 28 | | −- FAST! tcc generate x86 code. No byte code overhead. |
| 108 | +- Types: floating point numbers are not supported. |
| 29 | 109 | |
| 30 | | −- Compile and execute C source directly. No linking necessary. |
| 110 | +- (BUG) 'char' and 'short' casts do not truncate correctly. |
| 31 | 111 | |
| 32 | | −- C script supported : just add '#!/usr/bin/tcc' at the first line of |
| 33 | | − your C source, and execute it directly from the command line ! |
| 112 | +- 'sizeof' may not work if too complex expression is given. |
| 34 | 113 | |
| 35 | | −- All C library functions can be used via dynamic linking. |
| 114 | +Supported C extensions: |
| 115 | +---------------------- |
| 36 | 116 | |
| 37 | | −------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| 38 | | −An even smaller compiler can be build from tcc by activating the |
| 39 | | −define 'TINY'. The following changes from tcc: |
| 117 | +- 'inline' keyword is ignored. |
| 40 | 118 | |
| 41 | | −- Comments are not supported. |
| 42 | 119 | |
| 43 | | −- Parsing: No char constants. No '\r' and '\t' in strings. Only base |
| 44 | | − 10 numbers are supported. |
| 120 | +License: |
| 121 | +------- |
| 45 | 122 | |
| 46 | | −- no 'for' loops. |
| 123 | +TCC is distributed under the GNU Generic Public License (see COPYING |
| 124 | +file). |
| 47 | 125 | |
| 48 | | −- Operations: '?:', ',', 'x=', shifts, '&&', '||', '!', '~' not supported. |
| 126 | +I accept only patches where you give your copyright explictely to me |
| 127 | +to simplify licensing issues. |
| 49 | 128 | |
| 129 | +Fabrice Bellard - Nov 11, 2001. |