5 ms·

I use tcc for all of my small C "scripts" for doing ioctls, etc. Less bloat, suckless. I imagine most software would be better off using tcc than gcc/clang. Per

by Laaas 4y ago

I use tcc for all of my small C "scripts" for doing ioctls, etc. Less bloat, suckless. I imagine most software would be better off using tcc than gcc/clang. Performance isn't that important in most cases.

circuit10 4y ago
I feel like a lot of software written in C is written in C for performance reasons. Obviously that’s not always the case and TCC is useful but I wouldn’t say that that most software should use it
- t-3 4y ago
  C is usually the path of least resistance on *nix, if you're trying to interact with the OS. The docs give you C prototypes and C examples, and the source is mostly C, several standard directories are filled with C code and libraries compiled from C.
doublepg23 4y ago
> Performance isn't that important in most cases. Optimizing for storage space is…better?
- vidarh 4y ago
  Since they say "scripts", note that tcc supports being invoked in the shebang line. E.g. #!/usr/bin/tcc -run You can do that with gcc/clang too (e.g. #if 0, #endif to wrap a block of shell script to compile the current file and execute the result) but a primary value of tcc is that it compiles fast. On a more philosophical note, the suckless approach is to optimise for simplicity not storage. It's perfectly valid to disagree with that of course, but if simplicitly of the system as a whole is a consideration gcc and clang doesn't really fit.
  - LukeShu 4y ago
    You can only sort of do that with gcc/clang. The #if 0 trick relies on funny behavior that is in a few common shells. When you try to execve(2) a script without a proper #! shebang, the kernel will return ENOEXEC. Bash will check for ENOEXEC then check a few heuristics to see if it looks like a text file, and if it does, then it will try to run it as a shell script. This means that your script will work when run from a shell, but won't work when exec()ed from a non-shell program, which is a weird foot-gun.
    - vidarh 4y ago
      That makes sense. When I checked the tcc command line I was mildly surprised to see you could do the #if 0 hack at all, so not surprised to hear it has severe limitations.
notorandit 4y ago
I think you are confusing the work of Frabrice Bellard with this very one. The former is a C-language compiler. This once is a compiler for a language called "Tiny C". Understandable confusion, though.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
LanternLight83 4y ago
Thanks for sharing! I've yet to go through my C phase, but see it on the horizon, and will remember this and the shebang trick.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  This is a recommended practice for scripting with Nim if you want a batteries-included language.

by Laaas 4y ago

circuit10 4y ago

I feel like a lot of software written in C is written in C for performance reasons. Obviously that’s not always the case and TCC is useful but I wouldn’t say that that most software should use it

t-3 4y ago
C is usually the path of least resistance on *nix, if you're trying to interact with the OS. The docs give you C prototypes and C examples, and the source is mostly C, several standard directories are filled with C code and libraries compiled from C.

doublepg23 4y ago

> Performance isn't that important in most cases. Optimizing for storage space is…better?

vidarh 4y ago
Since they say "scripts", note that tcc supports being invoked in the shebang line. E.g. #!/usr/bin/tcc -run You can do that with gcc/clang too (e.g. #if 0, #endif to wrap a block of shell script to compile the current file and execute the result) but a primary value of tcc is that it compiles fast. On a more philosophical note, the suckless approach is to optimise for simplicity not storage. It's perfectly valid to disagree with that of course, but if simplicitly of the system as a whole is a consideration gcc and clang doesn't really fit.
- LukeShu 4y ago
  You can only sort of do that with gcc/clang. The #if 0 trick relies on funny behavior that is in a few common shells. When you try to execve(2) a script without a proper #! shebang, the kernel will return ENOEXEC. Bash will check for ENOEXEC then check a few heuristics to see if it looks like a text file, and if it does, then it will try to run it as a shell script. This means that your script will work when run from a shell, but won't work when exec()ed from a non-shell program, which is a weird foot-gun.
  - vidarh 4y ago
    That makes sense. When I checked the tcc command line I was mildly surprised to see you could do the #if 0 hack at all, so not surprised to hear it has severe limitations.

notorandit 4y ago

I think you are confusing the work of Frabrice Bellard with this very one. The former is a C-language compiler. This once is a compiler for a language called "Tiny C". Understandable confusion, though.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

LanternLight83 4y ago

Thanks for sharing! I've yet to go through my C phase, but see it on the horizon, and will remember this and the shebang trick.

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
This is a recommended practice for scripting with Nim if you want a batteries-included language.