Description

Cake is a C23 compiler frond end written from scratch in C.

The compiler can be used to translate new versions of C (like C23) to C99.

It also can be used to try out new features for the C language.

Extensions like lambdas, defer and more were implemented.

Web Playground

This is the best way to try.

http://thradams.com/web3/playground.html

Features

• C23 preprocessor
• syntax analisys
• semantic analisys
• c backend
• Builds AST

Build

Windows

Open the Developer Command Prompt of visual studio. Go to the src directoy and type

cl build.c && build

This will build cake.exe.

Linux

Got to the src directory and type:

gcc build.c -o build && ./build

To run unit tests windows/linux add -DTEST for instance:

gcc -DTEST build.c -o build && ./build

Build web

emscriptem https://emscripten.org/ is required.

First do the normal build.

The normal build also generates a file lib.c that is the amalgameted version of the "core lib".

Then at ./src dir type:

call emcc -DMOCKFILES "lib.c" -o "Web\cake.js" -s WASM=0 -s EXPORTED_FUNCTIONS="['_CompileText']" -s EXTRA_EXPORTED_RUNTIME_METHODS="['ccall', 'cwrap']"

This will generate the cake.js

Command line

Make sure cake is on your system path.

Samples

cake source.c

this will ouput ./out/source.c

See Manual

Road map

• Complete semantic analisys
• Static analysis
• Backend, maybe qbe QBE

References

A copy of each C standard draft in included in docs folder. The parser is based on C23.

Influenced by

• Typescript
• Small C compilers

Status?

Even if not necessary for most features, I want Cake to make a full semantic analysis.

It is necessary more work it is not complete yet.

One thing that is missing is check for type compatibility for instance when calling a function void F(int i) with F(1.2);

How cake is tested?

I am using Visual Studio 2022 IDE to write/debug cake source. Cake is parsing itself using the includes of MSVC and it generates the out dir after build.

Cake source code is not using any extension so the output is the same of input. This compilation is usefull for tracking errors.

Cake uses unit tests that are called automatically.