SectorC: A C Compiler in 512 bytes

#1

Post by xorvoid » Wed, May 24, 2023, 11:02 PM UTC

SectorC: A C Compiler in 512 bytes
xorvoid.com

Re: SectorC: A C Compiler in 512 bytes

#2

Post by xonix » Wed, May 24, 2023, 11:58 PM UTC

This reminded me the idea of compilers bootstrapping (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35714194). That is, now you can code in SectorC some slightly more advanced version of C capable of compiling TCC (https://bellard.org/tcc/), and then with TCC you can go forward to GCC and so on.

Re: SectorC: A C Compiler in 512 bytes

#3

Post by gigel82 » Thu, May 25, 2023, 12:09 AM UTC

I'm wondering if you can build an actual "Linux from scratch" with this as the lowest level, without the need to use a host system at all.

Re: SectorC: A C Compiler in 512 bytes

#4

Post by vitiral » Thu, May 25, 2023, 12:11 AM UTC

gigel82 wrote: post #3

I'm wondering if you can build an actual "Linux from scratch" with this as the lowest level, without the need to use a host system at all.

Without structs? Good luck...

Re: SectorC: A C Compiler in 512 bytes

#5

Post by DesiLurker » Thu, May 25, 2023, 12:13 AM UTC

something like this could be interesting for deep-space applications where you only have a bare metal environment with hardened processor and limited memory & of course ping time of days (to earth).

or alternatively for embedding a C compiler inside a LLM to use the LLM as a form of virtual machine.

Re: SectorC: A C Compiler in 512 bytes

#6

Post by gigel82 » Thu, May 25, 2023, 12:14 AM UTC

vitiral wrote: post #4

gigel82 wrote: post #3

I'm wondering if you can build an actual "Linux from scratch" with this as the lowest level, without the need to use a host system at all.

Without structs? Good luck...

LFS already has several "stepping stones" where it walks through a whole set of C compilers from very old ones compiling slightly newer / more capable ones and so on.

Perhaps with a few more "layers of compilers" on top you can get a very early GCC going.

Re: SectorC: A C Compiler in 512 bytes

#7

Post by DesiLurker » Thu, May 25, 2023, 12:14 AM UTC

vitiral wrote: post #4

gigel82 wrote: post #3

I'm wondering if you can build an actual "Linux from scratch" with this as the lowest level, without the need to use a host system at all.

Without structs? Good luck...

wonder how many extra bytes for structs?

Re: SectorC: A C Compiler in 512 bytes

#8

Post by vitiral » Thu, May 25, 2023, 12:14 AM UTC

Pretty nifty, nice work!

I'll point out to any passerby that this C doesn't support structs, so it's unlikely you'd actually want to build anything in it.

Re: SectorC: A C Compiler in 512 bytes

#9

Post by junon » Thu, May 25, 2023, 12:18 AM UTC

DesiLurker wrote: post #5

something like this could be interesting for deep-space applications where you only have a bare metal environment with hardened processor and limited memory & of course ping time of days (to earth). or alternatively for embedding a C compiler inside a LLM to use the LLM as a form of virtual machine.

A 512 byte memory restriction and deploying an LLM could not be on further opposite sides of the spectrum. :D

Re: SectorC: A C Compiler in 512 bytes

#10

Post by vitiral » Thu, May 25, 2023, 12:19 AM UTC

DesiLurker wrote: post #7

vitiral wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without structs? Good luck...

wonder how many extra bytes for structs?

In my experience, probably at least a 200-400 lines of C (another 512 bytes minimum? I don't know the conversion).

The problem is not just declaring structs but accessing them, referencing them, accessing/referencing fields and subfields, etc. That has to all be in the syntax. For such a minimal project you can ignore initialization.

I did all this while adding maybe 500 lines of C to GitHub.com/vitiral/fngi. Never tried for this level of minimalism though.