30cc (Pronounced as CCC, because in the Persian language, the number 30 is pronounced as C) is a toy C compiler written in C, which is strong enough to compile itself 🤝 This was my first attempt in writing a self-hosting software! What is a self-hosting software?
- Imagine
30ccgets strong enough to be able to compile itself. - I will first compile
30ccwithgccto get the30cccompiler's binary. - I will then use the
gcc-generated30ccbinary file to compile the30ccagain. - I now have a
30cc-compiled version of30cc, which I can use for further developing the compiler! - I can forget about
gcc, as if it never existed! Beautiful hah?30ccis now all alive by itself!
30cc emits x86-64 assembly as its output. The outputs are totally unoptimized, but that's fine, the project aims to be educational.
- You'll first need to bootstrap the compiler by running
make. This will compile the 30cc compiler and store its binary ina.out. - Then run
./build.py. This will use the bootstrapped 30cc-compiler to compile 30cc itself. It then again uses the 30cc-compiled compiler to compile 30cc once again. The final compiler is then stored as./30cc. - In the end, you will have 3 binary files which should all behave the same:
a.outwhich is the bootstrapped gcc-compiled version of 30cc30cc_gccwhich is the output of gcc-compiled 30cc compiler, compiling the 30cc compiler30ccwhich is the output of 30cc-compiled 30cc compiler, compiling the 30cc compiler
Running independent source-files through make:
make run program=./examples/inp.c arguments=something
To run tests use
python scripts/test.py update
Then check the output of the tests.
If you are on mac use ./scripts/test_mac.sh to run the tests in docker.