HackerReposA FIELD GUIDE TO OPEN SOURCE
ProSponsor the shelf♧ 0
← Back to top all-time
rui314
chibicc
C2019–2025
rui314 / chibicc

chibicc

A small C compiler

Languages & Compilers
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
18Distinct people
22Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
12KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

A small C compiler

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year22 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2019-09-05 20:54:39 UTC to 2025-12-15 04:12:04 UTC.

0123452019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments20192020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 2 submissions, 1 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 1 submissions, 2 comments20222023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 0 submissions, 5 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2025

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC321
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC312
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC505
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202

What Hacker News says

22 sources
masot·Dec 9, 2025
For me, it was just to have some fun seeing whether you can get the convenience of generics in C without blowing up the size of a "minimal standards-compliant compiler." E.g., Chibicc[1] is only a few thousand lines of code; adding Gamma to that would not blow it up by much. There's something aesthetically pleasing about knowing I can read the whole thing in a few days. Nothing like that is possible for C++ (or D?) AFAIK. But yes --- for a real project I would absolutely recommend someone use D over this ! [1] https://github.com/rui314/chibicc
In The Gamma Language
sneed_chucker·Jul 15, 2024
Consider taking a look at chibicc and simply working forward through the commits: https://github.com/rui314/chibicc > Each commit of this project corresponds to a section of the book. For this purpose, not only the final state of the project but each commit was carefully written with readability in mind. Readers should be able to learn how a C language feature can be implemented just by reading one or a few commits of this project.
In 'Writing a C Compiler' is a book (2022)
_f5ah·Jan 13, 2024
Here's my take[1] on it. In essence, # Learning Resources ## Theory Take a look at these two books: - Crafting Interpreters[2]. Compilers and interpreters have a lot in common and the book is exceptionally beginner-friendly. Basically, this is the perfect one to get started with. - Introduction to Compilers and Language Design[3]. Doesn’t assume any preexisting compilers knowledge, and teaches all the basics necessary to build a compiler using a hands-down approach. The examples are in C. Ignore the classics textbooks like the Dragon Book or "Modern Compiler Implementation" for the time. You can always come back to them later if you want to. ## Source code Explore the sources of - 8cc[4]. A compiler for the C programming language. It's intended to support all C11 language features while keeping the code as small and simple as possible. -
Read the rest
chibicc[5]. The successor of 8cc from the same author. If you want a bit of background on these two compilers, check out the author's blog post "How I wrote a self-hosting C compiler in 40 days"[6]. Personally, I find it to be quite a fascinating read. # Input language Don’t try to come up with your own language just yet. Go with an existing educational language instead, and focus on learning about compilers. ChocoPy[7] is specifically designed for classroom use in compiler courses and by extension is great for a hobby compiler project. # Target language Many educational compilers emit MIPS assembly. Although it's possible to run it using an emulator, running a native executable produced by your own compiler feels much more rewarding. So I'd suggest your compiler emits x86-64 assembly. For educational purposes, I'd avoid targeting languages such as LLVM IR or C. Emitting assembly helps understand many important concepts better: - Managing a function's stack frame - Calling conventions - Finding the memory address of an identifier - Converting expressions into assembly - And so on and so forth. [1]: https://mykolam.net/posts/toy-compiler-of-scala-subset/2-loo... [2]: https://craftinginterpreters.com/contents.html [3]: https://www3.nd.edu/~dthain/compilerbook/ [4]: https://github.com/rui314/8cc [5]: https://github.com/rui314/chibicc [6]: https://www.sigbus.info/how-i-wrote-a-self-hosting-c-compile... [7]: https://chocopy.org/
In Apple hiring compiler developers for improving Swift / C++ interoperability
iso8859-1·Aug 20, 2023
If a --k&r mode were to be reliable, wouldn't it need to get specified first? Otherwise people would start relying on some edge case. If speed is not a requirement for the --k&r mode, you could just take the tis-interpreter and note that if it runs without UB, it is still much faster than an actual computer was when k&r were active. Would it even be possible to specify a variant of C that contains no UB (e.g. would define exactly what happens on unaligned access), but can compile practical existing C89 programs? I wonder if it could be written such that it could actually specify the behaviour consistently across the language intersection supported by both of e.g. GCC 2.95 and Chibicc[0]. Or maybe there are so many bugs in GCC 2.95 that it would simply be infeasible? How much time would it take to specify? [0]: https://github.com/rui314/c
Read the rest
hibicc
In GCC always assumes aligned pointer accesses (2020)
smarx007·Jul 15, 2023
I was on the Eclipse Foundation call a few days ago regarding this topic and they said there was a well-established 3-part test for this in the EU courts. But I don't think I managed to take a screenshot, sorry. Here is a snippet from the EU Blue Guide linked the from the Eclipse blog post: "Commercial activity is understood as providing goods in a business related context. Non-profit organisations may be considered as carrying out commercial activities if they operate in such a context. This can only be appreciated on a case by case basis taking into account the regularity of the supplies, the characteristics of the product, the intentions of the supplier, etc. In principle, occasional supplies by charities or hobbyists should not be considered as taking place in a business related context." I would consider GCC or React to fit this defi
Read the rest
nition, while a hobby project like https://github.com/rui314/chibicc not to fit it. Edit: I don't think you would have any obligations under CRA unless you make a project release available, whether commercially or on Github. The 3-part test I mentioned above only kicks in when there is a release of some sort in the first place.
In No cyber resilience without open source sustainability
ludocode·May 17, 2022
It looks like typeof() is being added it C23, so his complaint about it sort of makes sense. I say "sort of" because if he's truly concerned about the effort involved in creating independent implementations, then obviously he should be evaluating features by the difficulty involved in implementing them. typedef and typeof are absolutely trivial to implement [0] [1]. typedef just creates type aliases and typeof is very similar to sizeof. Also, I'm not sure what 1000 functions you're referring to, but most functions being added are already in POSIX and already exist in a huge number of independent libc implementations. There are dozens of POSIX libcs, including at least 5 totally independent implementations for Linux alone that are still fully maintained and under active development. [0]: typeof: https://github.com/rui314/chibicc/commit/7d8
Read the rest
0a5136d1b2926dd0... [1]: typedef: https://github.com/rui314/chibicc/commit/a6b82da1ae9eefa44da...
In Common libraries and data structures for C

Showing the 15 most recent of 22 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.

MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME

A few shortcuts

/
Search the collection
?
Open this guide
Esc
Close dialogs and navigation

Your saved repositories and interests stay in this browser.