tscc

A toy C compiler written in TypeScript.

I created this project to improve my knowledge of compilers and the C programming language. My goal is to keep the source code simple and readable while eventually reaching the point where it can compile non-trivial code. Like many others - I was inspired by the incremental approach from this paper by Abdulaziz Ghuloum.

Getting Started

Start by cloning the repository and installing the dependencies:

git clone https://github.com/evansmal/tscc.git
cd tscc && yarn install

Next, build the project:

yarn build

Run the compiler:

./tscc main.c

Currently, there is support for some subset of C99. The goal is to eventually be able to compile some set of non-trivial real-world applications out there (libpng, git).

To get a complete list of all of the language features currently supported, check the integration tests. To name a few:

• Unary and binary operators
• Logical and relational operators
• Local variables
• If statements and conditional expressions
• Compound statements
• Loops (for, while)

The project is structured as a sequence of passes from the input format (C source code) to the binary output. The final assembling and linking is currently done using gcc.

Unit Testing

Run the unit tests:

yarn test:unit

Run the end-to-end test suite:

yarn test:feature

Adding a new test is as simple as adding a new .c file to test/features. The test suite will compile and run the test with tscc and gcc and compare the results.

References

• An Incremental Approach to Compiler Construction

• chibicc: A Small C Compiler

• tcc: Tiny C Compiler

• A Review of Assembly Language

• Writing a C Compiler