Thanks for the feedback. On 2026-08-13 12:12, [email protected] wrote: > "i tend to think tinycc may not be the playground for it" > > Is TCC a personal "playground" or a C compiler that could (should) be > considered capable ?
tinycc already is a rather capable C compiler/toolchain to compile kernel, libc,
and a huge userspace of ~500 ebuilds backported for linux-tcc/musl.
I am only a little worried it's becoming de-stabilized and progress made already
at stake then.
> All I see is people saying that TCC feature set should (must) only cover what
> they need out of it ("it's good enough for me").
>
> The C standard has been bastardized enough during its lifespan, why not
> selecting one version (c99, c11) and make it feature
> complete once and for all ?
One major issue i recall was the trade-off between language-features relied upon
_internally_ with tinycc and keeping it's latest mob/HEAD fully "bootstrappable"
(Sorry to mention this again, but it's something i consider utmost important)
Gladly there's been some other ground-breaking contribution to make 0.9.27
compilable by pnut-cc compiler recently. I've just not been in the mood
to re-base this onto mob/HEAD for testing with tiny-bootstrap.
Together with a few musl-libc patching _Complex is a non-issue, which does not
mean if anyone wished to implement it there was any objection from my side,
i only bothered to ask because i stumbled upon it before myself.
Anyway, that's unrelated to the question how my enthusiam reached it's limits to
proceed any further - and this is unrelated to tinycc-devel alike.
> It's tiresome to see people arguing how not to implement this functionality
> or that support, taming down willing enthusiasts.
>
> No wonder why TCC is still at 0.9.27 after so long, nobody wanting to take it
> seriously as a capable yet lightweight C compiler
> contender.
tinycc is way beyond 0.9.27 already, there's just not been anyone brave enough
to issue an official git-tag on latest HEAD, for x86_32 at least.
>
> We've seen some BSD patches recently, some breaking things, some fixing
> things, __Complex has been an issue for a while now (some libraries need it
> nonetheless).
Good question: which libraries do need _Complex extension? FYI i've not
encountered any yet when backporting mentioned userspace components:
http://tinyfront.mooo.com/downloads/x86-embedded/666666/tinyfront-packages.list
(ALL of this is driven by tinycc 100% without gcc/binutils/llvm/clang involved
anywhere); Of cause this list may not be complete although i tried to salvage
almost EVERYTHING relevant that a C-compiler could digest, but haven't checked
all options for math-libraries coping with signal processing and complex
numbers, and if any of those would need support from tinycc with _Complex.
There is other, language features however, NPTL and __thread for example,
which had to be coped with and their absense didn't cause any relevant trouble
either so far when remaining a bit conservative on the userspace side.
Nonetheless i do appreciate activity on the BSD side alot in principle, really.
For the record last time OpenBSD tried with PCC (year 2007) they did not yield a
complete system-integration anywhere close to what's been possible with tinycc
since recently (here's a few notes again
http://tinyfront.mooo.com/docs.html#Kernel)
> Why should we always have to rely on "many other gigantic heavy-weight
> toolchains" when it surely doesn't need "millions of
lines of code which do implement it" ?
Gladly we do not have to anymore, because tinycc is in decent shape and a
mostly complete GNUish/POSIX port being confirmed to pass both compile-time
and initial run-time testing (with x86_32).
> Come on guys, make TCC great again, with each passing year it should
> implement many new things and fix bugs, by now it should be
"gcc or llvm/clang" at a fraction of the size.
>
> Is it ?
>
> Regards.
> ----- Mail d'origine -----
> De: Michael Ackermann via Tinycc-devel <[email protected]>
> From: [email protected]
> Cc: Michael Ackermann <[email protected]>
> Envoy�: Thu, 13 Aug 2026 11:33:27 +0200 (CEST)
> Objet: Re: [Tinycc-devel] ISOC99 _Complex
>
> Hi,
>
> i'll try to summarize a few notes concerning C99 _Complex first:
>
> - with C11 it was designated an _optional_ core language feature again;
> in principle i do feel _Complex is non-orthogonal to C-language at the
> abstraction layer of C language
> - of cause complex numbers are important, question is if those should become
> a core language-feature of C itself hence
> - there certainly are other options to implement complex numbers such as some
> dedicated math-library (would be curious myself which those are);
> and what would any benefit of _Complex be over any dedicated math library?
> - another motivation to implement _Complex language extension regardless seems
> musl-libc for example by default relies upon it, but this can easily be
> patched without extending tinycc compiler and won't cause any trouble
> anywhere then (i'm maintaining such a musl-libc and userspace fork here to
> backport onto linux-tcc/musl for example, absense of _Complex was a
> non-issue so far, and when complex numbers are required i would be curious
> which math libraries existed to implement them where those belong)
> - it's important to consider the trade-off between language features supported
> and complexity of tinycc compiler; obviously tinycc is intended to be tiny
> by design and i do not know how much _Complex extension would add to the
> belly
> of tinycc (there is many other gigantic heavy-weight toolchains such as
> gcc or llvm/clang with dozens of millions of lines of code which do
> implement it)
>
> Long story short, of cause _Complex implementation is an interesting topic,
> given the importance of this with signal processing etc,
> but i tend to think tinycc may not be the playground for it.
>
> Hope i'm not in error with this judgement, feedback appreciated if any.
>
> Michael
>
> On 2026-08-12 21:51, [email protected] wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I was wondering if any has attempted or started to work out
> > implementing _Complex?
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> >
> > Jordan
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Tinycc-devel mailing list
> > [email protected]
> > https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/tinycc-devel
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