TCC - Tiny C Compiler

Computer History Notes - Herong's Tutorial Notes

∟1972 - C Language Developed by Dennis Ritchie

∟TCC - Tiny C Compiler

This section provides a quick introduction of Tiny C Compiler developed by Fabrice Bellard in 2002.

Tiny C Compiler (TCC) is small and fast C compiler for x86 machines developed by Fabrice Bellard in 2002. Main features of TCC are:

TCC is SMALL! You can compile and execute C code everywhere, for example on rescue disks (about 100KB for x86 TCC executable, including C preprocessor, C compiler, assembler and linker).
TCC is FAST! tcc generates x86 code. No byte code overhead. Compile, assemble and link several times faster than GCC.
TCC is UNLIMITED! Any C dynamic library can be used directly. TCC is heading toward full ISOC99 compliance. TCC can of course compile itself.
SAFE! tcc includes an optional memory and bound checker. Bound checked code can be mixed freely with standard code.

You can download Windows binary distribution of TCC at http://bellard.org/tcc/.

Here is a session of compiling, linking and executing a simple C program with TCC on a Windows system:

herong> type hello.c
#include <stdio.h>
main() {
   printf("Hello world!\n");
}

herong> \local\tcc\tcc -c hello.c -o hello.o -v
tcc version 0.9.24
-> hello.c
<- hello.o

herong> \local\tcc\tcc hello.o -o hello.exe -v
tcc version 0.9.24
-> hello.o
<- hello.exe (1536 bytes)

herong> hello.exe
Hello world!