TinyCC as backend #272
Replies: 19 comments 35 replies
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Hi, I’ve seen this topic discussed on the TCC list, but in general I feel a bit lost The idea of integrating a backend into Cake has always been on the table. I’m not a TCC user or specialist, but I think the first step would be to experiment I’m open to providing support and fixing issues quickly if Cake is tested with TCC. |
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Official repo is and I think the closest mirror on github is I'll send a message to the list tonight (or whenever the listserver is up again...) to ask for feedback. |
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I have a better view of what needs to be done. |
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Adding this cake_config.h at \tinycc-mob\tinycc-mob\win32 //cake config file
//TCC includes
#pragma dir ".\include"
#undef __cdecl
#undef __declspec
#undef __unaligned
#undef __fastcall
#undef _M_IX86
#define __SIZE_TYPE__ unsigned long
#define __PTRDIFF_TYPE__ long
#define __WCHAR_TYPE__ short
#define __builtin_va_list void*
#define __WINT_TYPE__ long
#define __attribute__(x)
#define __static__inline__ inline
#define __cdecl
#define __inline__ inline
#define __restrict__
#define __asm__(X)Then running cake file.c -o f.c
tcc f.cworks.. I will check parsing more headers from TCC. |
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Hi, you can test on Windows using this repository : https://github.com/Kochise/tinycc_win32 Replace current It will compile using latest public from You can find an extensive collection of includes in Good luck. |
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For the BOM thing in Visual Studio, maybe you can tweak the settings : https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/set-the-default-file-encoding/ https://vlasovstudio.com/fix-file-encoding/ https://cloverinks.medium.com/vscode-always-new-files-utf-8-with-bom-be24966c4d39 |
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I guess I found the problem. |
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Ah ok, thank for the hint, that might help me too. |
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What is editorconfig? I don't need to have tcc skip BOM?' Anything else you would like me to do for tcc? |
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Editor config is a IDE configuration file recognized by IDEs. I had one .editorconfig inside cake directory it was overriding other IDE settings like: I think TCC should skip BOM, but at the moment I removed BOM from cake source files and changed the editorconfig. You can try to compile cake using your version of TCC by typing at the cake/src directory. tcc build.c
./buildWhat is the output? |
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Actually, TinyCC generates un-optimized code and under Windows this easily is identified as some Variant of Malware. I get this behaviour with Bitdefender also. just different named variants... seems like tcc is building some first class nop slides or something. |
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I am trying to build cake with TCC windows In file included from embed.c:4:
In file included from ../fs.h:12:
In file included from c:/users/thiago/downloads/tinycc_win32-master(2)/tinycc_win32-master/win32/include/direct.h:10:
In file included from c:/users/thiago/downloads/tinycc_win32-master(2)/tinycc_win32-master/win32/include/io.h:11:
c:/users/thiago/downloads/tinycc_win32-master(2)/tinycc_win32-master/win32/include/string.h:32: warning: type defaults to int
In file included from embed.c:4:
In file included from ../fs.h:12:
In file included from c:/users/thiago/downloads/tinycc_win32-master(2)/tinycc_win32-master/win32/include/direct.h:10:
In file included from c:/users/thiago/downloads/tinycc_win32-master(2)/tinycc_win32-master/win32/include/io.h:11:
c:/users/thiago/downloads/tinycc_win32-master(2)/tinycc_win32-master/win32/include/string.h:32: error: ';' expected (got "extern")This is the line 32 of string.h _CRTIMP void *__cdecl _memccpy(void *_Dst,const void *_Src,int _Val,size_t _MaxCount); |
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And by the way... gcc spits out lots of warnings and if I set -std=c99 it won't compile cake... is this the intended behaviour? gcc -std=c99 token.c hashmap.c console.c tokenizer.c osstream.c fs.c options.c object.c expressions.c pre_expressions.c parser.c visit_defer.c visit_il.c flow.c error.c type.c main.c -o cake.exe -w |
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Regarding DT_DIR You need to have the _BSD_SOURCE feature test macro defined to get those defines, they are not standard, and GCC does not define that macro when compiling for C99. gcc -std=c99 -D_BSD_SOURCE -Wall a.c |
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static_assert is also defined in C11 gcc -std=c99 token.c hashmap.c console.c tokenizer.c osstream.c fs.c options.c object.c expressions.c pre_expressions.c parser.c visit_defer.c visit_il.c flow.c error.c type.c main.c -o cake.exe -w -D_BSD_SOURCE And so tcc also errors out tcc token.c hashmap.c console.c tokenizer.c osstream.c fs.c options.c object.c expressions.c pre_expressions.c parser.c visit_defer.c visit_il.c flow.c error.c type.c main.c -o cake.exe -w -D_BSD_SOURCE tcc: error: undefined symbol 'static_assert' |
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This is for. printf(u8"˰"); //requires C11 can be changed to printf("\xcb\xb0"); |
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Note: |
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I think we can put a macro in static_assert when compiled with C99.
…On Fri, 15 Aug 2025 at 08:57, Michael Richter ***@***.***> wrote:
static_assert is also defined in C11
gcc -std=c99 token.c hashmap.c console.c tokenizer.c osstream.c fs.c
options.c object.c expressions.c pre_expressions.c parser.c visit_defer.c
visit_il.c flow.c error.c type.c main.c -o cake.exe -w -D_BSD_SOURCE
/tmp/cclq4oyt.o: In Funktion object_make_wchar_t':
object.c:(.text+0x947): Nicht definierter Verweis auf static_assert'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
And so tcc also errors out
tcc token.c hashmap.c console.c tokenizer.c osstream.c fs.c options.c
object.c expressions.c pre_expressions.c parser.c visit_defer.c visit_il.c
flow.c error.c type.c main.c -o cake.exe -w -D_BSD_SOURCE
tcc: error: undefined symbol 'static_assert'
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The idea of compiling cake with TCC, is to clone TCC just like cake clones
GCC and MSVC.
see
void add_standard_macros(struct preprocessor_ctx* ctx)
Cloning TCC allows parsing TCC includes just like TCC and the output will
be compatible.
Cake also could work as cross compiler,
let's say compiling cake on windows and generating TCC linux. (if we had the linux headers)
But this is not ready yet. Today cake clones the compiler that compiles itself.
Message ID: ***@***.***
…> com>
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I've updated my https://github.com/Kochise/tinycc_win32 repository with the latest TCC commit (19fdef4) as well I added a 'light' version of https://github.com/thradams/cake (319cbce) in the Compile TCC first ( Of course there are some compilation errors (despite having updated f:\_GIT\tinycc_win32\win32>make-cake.bat
Project settings...
tcc version 0.9.28.19fdef4 2022-04-17_master@78d337c* (x86_64 Windows)
::done
Deleting binaries...
::done
Some flags...
::done
Compiling 'cake'...
AFLAGS= -c -std=c99 -If:\_GIT\tinycc_win32\win32\.\include -If:\_GIT\tinycc_win32\win32\.\include_extn -I.\include
expressions.c:6265: warning: assignment discards qualifiers from pointer target type
object.c:348: warning: implicit declaration of function 'static_assert'
object.c:732: warning: cast between pointer and integer of different size
object.c:767: warning: cast between pointer and integer of different size
object.c:1918: warning: assignment discards qualifiers from pointer target type
object.c:1999: warning: assignment discards qualifiers from pointer target type
object.c:2033: warning: assignment discards qualifiers from pointer target type
parser.c:8129: warning: assignment discards qualifiers from pointer target type
parser.c:8214: warning: assignment discards qualifiers from pointer target type
::done
Linking 'cake'...
tcc: error: undefined symbol 'strtof'
tcc: error: undefined symbol 'strtold'
tcc: error: undefined symbol 'static_assert'
::doneI guess the math lib isn't updated to reflect the C99 changes ('strtof' and 'strtold') as well as 'static_assert' missing. Btw, in :
Regards. |
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We only need
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Ok, I'll try it. Any other way to verify everything works like you intended ? Any way to fix the warnings as well ? Could you verify the flags I used ? |
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i am trying to fix my build.c how to fix this (trying to compile a simple file embed.exe tcc -D_CRT_SECURE_NO_WARNINGS -I.. embed.c ../fs.c ../error.c -o ../embed.exe do I need to include all libs in TCC? |
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These changes are on the main branch |
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I'm using one of the latest mobs (from Aug, 7th 2025) on ubuntu 16.04 I compiled cake and ran all tests, see build.log There seems to be errors with some linux includes: Second error in mathdef.h /usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/bits/mathdef.h:25:60: error: token 'FLT_EVAL_METHOD' is not valid in preprocessor expressions Another one: results in |
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Compile cake using tiny c compiler using |
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This is what needs to be adjusted inside cake source code. See |
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Note that -auto-config will find the directories of GCC. |
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I understand the motivation to have a platform agnostic build "script" yet due to each platform's specialties (path, env vars, etc) I guess the best is to have one build bash/batch per platform (hence WSL is not always available on Windows' systems. |
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There is problem with cake on linux I think I need to implement GCC __has_include_next |
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One idea is to rename the output to represent "cake" as the front end of: cake_cl file.c && cl ./out/file.c |
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I don't understand, would it not be better to have one Like : cake file.c && cl ./out/file.c
cake file.c && gcc ./out/file.c -o file
cake file.c && tcc ./out/file.c -o fileIsn't |
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The previous versions of cake use to "edit/transform" the original code. The the current mode uses simplified C89 , that works as intermediate language, and it is platform and compiler dependent. So it is for direct use then discarded. For instance a simple hello world in MSVC generates struct __crt_locale_pointers {
struct __crt_locale_data * locinfo;
struct __crt_multibyte_data * mbcinfo;
};
struct _iobuf {
void * _Placeholder;
};
int __cdecl __stdio_common_vfprintf(unsigned __int64 _Options, struct _iobuf * _Stream, char * _Format, struct __crt_locale_pointers * _Locale, char * _ArgList);
static unsigned __int64 __ck__OptionsStorage1;
inline unsigned __int64 *__cdecl __local_stdio_printf_options(void)
{
return &__ck__OptionsStorage1;
}
inline int __cdecl _vfprintf_l(struct _iobuf * _Stream, char * _Format, struct __crt_locale_pointers * _Locale, char * _ArgList)
{
return __stdio_common_vfprintf((*__local_stdio_printf_options()), _Stream, _Format, _Locale, _ArgList);
}
struct _iobuf *__cdecl __acrt_iob_func(unsigned int _Ix);
inline int __cdecl printf(char * _Format, ...)
{
int _Result;
char * _ArgList;
((void)(_ArgList = (char *)(&(_Format)) + 4U));
_Result = _vfprintf_l((__acrt_iob_func(1)), _Format, 0U, _ArgList);
((void)(_ArgList = 0U));
return _Result;
}
int main()
{
printf("hello");
}This happens because MSVC is using inline function for printf. I think the idea of generate a portable code still can be pursued, but the |
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Just as reference on my WSL (windows) |
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I am parsing the TCC windows headers files with cake (that clones MSVC) I need to create this cakeconfig.h #pragma dir "C:/tcc/win32/include"
#pragma dir "C:/tcc/win32/include_extn"
#pragma dir "C:/tcc/win32/include_w32api"
#undef _M_IX86
#define __SIZE_TYPE__ unsigned long
#define __PTRDIFF_TYPE__ long
#define __WCHAR_TYPE__ short
#define __builtin_va_list void*
#define __WINT_TYPE__ long
#define __attribute__(x)
#define __inline__ inlineThat means... TCC has some language extensions like inline, attribute and it also defines |
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tcc -E -P -dD -U__TCC_PP__ include/tccdefs.h |
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tcc -E -dM - < nul |
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I am doing Currently I am implementing in cake: I am also comparing with GCC. |
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Thank you. |
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GCC __attribute__ implemented. These extensions are active in windows and linux builds at the same time. It can be separated in the future. Now, to run TCC we only need a simple cakeconfig with few defines. #pragma dir "C:/tcc/win32/include"
#undef _M_IX86 //TCC also defines it
//Missing defines...
#define __SIZE_TYPE__ unsigned long
#define __PTRDIFF_TYPE__ long
#define __WCHAR_TYPE__ short
#define __WINT_TYPE__ long
//#define __inline__ inlineput this cakeconfig.h |
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At this moment it is not necessary to compile cake with TCC to use cake with TCC. |
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I added an option that is -target= |
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At the moment there is a discussion on the TinyCC mailing list about integrating C23 features etc.
Would it be possible to merge CAKE as a frontend to TCC as backend? I'm asking for a friend ;-)
Seriously, that would mean to find a way to share/redistribute the commandline arguments from cake to libtcc, together with the preprocessed source code. But at first glance without looking to deep into the source it seems possible and would help both projects
What are your thoughts?
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