miniCC

A simple compiler for a subset of the C programming language.

This project aims to implement a complete compilation pipeline, including lexical analysis, parsing, semantic analysis, and code generation for a simplified C grammar.

Demo

Build and run

Move into the minicc subdirectory and build there; executables go into minicc/bin/.

cd minicc
# compile by using the provided Makefile
make

Run the program with an optional file argument (from the same minicc directory). The binary will be located in bin/:

bin/minicc [options] [path/to/file.c]

Options

• -v, --verbose: Enable visual debugging. Prints the Source-Token Map and the ASCII AST Tree.

If no file is given, it uses examples/simple.c by default.

Running Tests

To automatically run the compiler against all files in the examples/ directory:

make test

Supported Features

• Data Types: int, void.
• Variable Declarations: Local and global variables.
• Statements: Expression statements, block statements { ... }.
• Control Flow: if, else, while, return.
• Functions: Function definition, function declaration, function calls (including recursion).
• Operators:
  • Arithmetic: +, -, *, /.
  • Comparison: ==, !=, <, >, <=, >=.
  • Assignment: =.

Project layout

minicc/             # build directory containing sources and Makefile
minicc/src/         # C++ source files
examples/simple.c              # simple sample
examples/arithmetic.c          # arithmetic expressions
examples/control.c             # loops and conditionals
examples/comments.c            # single- and multi-line comments
examples/error.c               # syntax error
examples/recursion.c           # function call with recursion

Roadmap

To evolve this toy into a simple compiler, the rough stages would be:

1. ✅ Lexical Analysis – take source code and convert it into a stream of tokens.
2. ✅ Parsing – take token stream and build an abstract syntax tree (AST). use recursive-descent or table-driven parser; the parser class should be fleshed out.
3. ☑️ Semantic analysis – traverse AST, check types, scopes, declarations, resolve identifiers, detect errors.
4. 👷‍♂️ Intermediate representation – convert AST to IR (e.g. three-address code) for easier optimization and code generation.
5. ☑️ Optimization – perform basic transformations like constant folding, dead code elimination, or simple register allocation.
6. ☑️ Code generation – emit target code (assembly, bytecode, etc.). could start with simple x86-64 or use LLVM as backend.