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Ceed – A tiny x86 compiler with ELF and PE target (2017)

peter_d_sherman 3y ago
Related: https://blog.pankajgarg.com/ceed/ https://blog.pankajgarg.com/ceed/ >"It supports 32-bit Linux and Windows and can generate output file in either ELF or PE format. Complete code for Ceed is around 1400 lines of Flex/Bison/C code excluding comments." PDS -- Note that the 1400 LOC figure also includes the code to produce 32-bit ELF and PE executables... in other words, the lines of solely compilation code are significantly less... Many ultra-small open source teaching compilers only emit intermediary code that subsequently needs to be compiled with another utility or utilites, e.g., an assembler and possibly a linker. Not this one. Which makes it worthy of study for any would-be compiler writers, regardless of the language that is to be compiled...
- anta40 3y ago
  For example: https://github.com/ipankajg/ceed/blob/master/src/ceedpe.c https://github.com/ipankajg/ceed/blob/master/src/ceedpe.c While other small compilers still rely on gcc/llvm/etc to build the actual executable. Looks interesting.
  - foldr 3y ago
    It is indeed quite fun and educational to figure out how to construct an executable from scratch. I managed to do it for MachO and ELF executables a while back, and got some 'Hello World' style programs working. Ten or twenty years ago it would have been a bit easier, but modern executables are quite complex – especially if you are dynamically linking libc. As a strategy for implementing a compiler it does introduce a heavy maintenance burden. MacOS, for example, is constantly adding new requirements on valid executables and will often refuse to execute perfectly valid executables from only a few versions back.
userbinator 3y ago
Using Lex/Yacc for a tiny compiler? That seems like an anachronism even in 2017. Perhaps the relatively recent tiny compilers like C4 and the like have raised my expectations, but from its name and description, I was expecting this to be another C-subset self-compiler or something more like (O)TCC.

Related: https://blog.pankajgarg.com/ceed/ https://blog.pankajgarg.com/ceed/ >"It supports 32-bit Linux and Windows and can generate output file in either ELF or PE format. Complete code for Ceed is around 1400 lines of Flex/Bison/C code excluding comments." PDS -- Note that the 1400 LOC figure also includes the code to produce 32-bit ELF and PE executables... in other words, the lines of solely compilation code are significantly less... Many ultra-small open source teaching compilers only emit intermediary code that subsequently needs to be compiled with another utility or utilites, e.g., an assembler and possibly a linker. Not this one. Which makes it worthy of study for any would-be compiler writers, regardless of the language that is to be compiled...

anta40 3y ago
For example: https://github.com/ipankajg/ceed/blob/master/src/ceedpe.c https://github.com/ipankajg/ceed/blob/master/src/ceedpe.c While other small compilers still rely on gcc/llvm/etc to build the actual executable. Looks interesting.
- foldr 3y ago
  It is indeed quite fun and educational to figure out how to construct an executable from scratch. I managed to do it for MachO and ELF executables a while back, and got some 'Hello World' style programs working. Ten or twenty years ago it would have been a bit easier, but modern executables are quite complex – especially if you are dynamically linking libc. As a strategy for implementing a compiler it does introduce a heavy maintenance burden. MacOS, for example, is constantly adding new requirements on valid executables and will often refuse to execute perfectly valid executables from only a few versions back.

userbinator 3y ago

Using Lex/Yacc for a tiny compiler? That seems like an anachronism even in 2017. Perhaps the relatively recent tiny compilers like C4 and the like have raised my expectations, but from its name and description, I was expecting this to be another C-subset self-compiler or something more like (O)TCC.