TinyCC

The Tiny C Compiler

Synopsis

    use TinyCC *;

    tcc.define(NAME => '"cygx"');
    tcc.compile(q:to/__END__/).run;
        int puts(const char *);
        int main(void) {
            puts("Hello, " NAME "!");
            return 0;
        }
        __END__

    use TinyCC;

    TinyCC.new.target(:EXE).compile(q:to/__END__/).dump('42.exe');
        int main(void) { return 42; }
        __END__

    run('./42.exe');

    use TinyCC::Eval;
    use TinyCC::Types;

    my $out = cval(uint64);

    EVAL q:to/__END__/, :lang<C>, init => { .define: N => 42; .declare: :$out };
        extern unsigned long long out;

        static unsigned long long fib(unsigned n) {
            return n < 2 ? n : fib(n - 1) + fib(n - 2);
        }

        int main(void) {
            out = fib(N);
            return 0;
        }
        __END__

    say $out.deref;

    use TinyCC::CFunc;

    sub forty-two(--> int) is cfunc('return 42;') {*}

    sub plus(int \a, int \b --> int) is cfunc({ q:to/__END__/ }) {*}
        return a + b;
        __END__

    say plus(1, forty-two);

    use TinyCC::CCall;

    sub abort is ccall {*}
    abort;

Description

The TinyCC C codebase can be found in this repository. A properly installed compiler should be recognized out of the box. If you want to use the compiler without installation, set the environment vars LIBTCC and TCCROOT appropriately or configure these at runtime via

use TinyCC {
    .load: <candidate/path/one/to/libtcc candidate/path/two/to/libtcc>;
    .setroot: 'path/to/tcc/build/dir';
};

As the author is notoriously bad at writing documentation, for now you have to look at the tests or even the module source to see what is or is not implemented.

Known Issues

Rakudo's NativeCall interacts badly with precompilation, so the module's bytecode size and startup time leave something to be desired.

Passing a block to the use statement is nice in principle, but problematic in practice: Any named argument occurring within gets silently adjusted to a positional one. You can work around this by either promoting the block to a sub (@_) { ... } or by adding list interpolation to any named argument, ie use |:arg instead of plain :arg.

Bugs and Development

Development happens at GitHub. If you found a bug or have a feature request, use the issue tracker over there.

Copyright and License

Copyright (C) 2015 by cygx@cpan.org

Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0