arocc

There is actually another C compiler written in Zig, Aro[1], which Zig started using since 0.16 for its TranslateC module. [1]: https://github.com/Vexu/arocc

Zig actually bundles LLVM's Clang, which it uses to compile C with the `zig cc` command. But the long term goal seems to not be so tightly coupled to LLVM, so I'm expecting that to move elsewhere. They still do some clever stuff around compiler-rt, allowing it to be better at cross-compilation than raw Clang, but the bulk of it is mostly just Clang. There is also another C compiler written in Zig, Aro[1], which seems to be much more complete than TFA. Zig started using that as a library for its TranslateC functionality (for translating C headers into Zig, not whole programs) in 0.16. [1]: https://github.com/Vexu/arocc

just forked https://github.com/Vexu/arocc and it took me 5 seconds to complete it.

Currently, zig cc is the Clang frontend which is linked into the Zig compiler (most things in that blog post are about differences between the Zig toolchain and a typical Clang toolchain for cross-compilation, and how Zig invokes the Clang frontend). I'm not sure what the current plan is for C compilation after the LLVM divorce and after Clang will be moved into a Zig package (e.g. I remember talk that arocc [1] is going to be integrated into the Zig compiler, but not sure if that's still planned, or if C compilation will also be delegated to the new Clang package along with C++ and ObjC compilation). [1] https://github.com/Vexu/arocc

Zig embeds clang to compile C code. This doesn't add a new dependency since Zig already depends on LLVM. If there is a future where the self-hosted Zig backend is good enough to not depend on LLVM anymore, there might be a reason to use a C compiler written in Zig (possibly https://github.com/Vexu/arocc)

> Does this mean that y'all are open to the self-hosted compiler supporting CPU architectures unlikely to ever have LLVM support? Yes! We won't block 1.0 on the quality of the less mainstream targets, but that's what the tier system is for - to ship a compiler that has varying levels of quality for various targets, while communicating clearly to users what kind of experience they can expect for each one. SuperH patches are absolutely welcome. > how is zig cc anticipated to work with a self-hosted Zig? Will there be a dependency on clang [...]? The main distribution of Zig will be LLVM/Clang-enabled. However it is already possible to build a version of Zig that does not have these features enabled. In such case, compiling C, C++, and Objective-C code will result in an error. However, the arocc project[1] is emerging, which, depending on a

Here's the info on zld status: https://ziglang.org/download/0.8.0/release-notes.html#Self-H... By the way, check out this project by Zig core team member, Vexu: https://github.com/Vexu/arocc

> 9. Without a C compiler, we're stuck with, wedded to, and beholden to libclang. > I wouldn't be surprised that the eventual cost of adapting ourselves to > libclang will exceed the cost of doing our own C compiler. This is a really insightful point. I had to learn this the hard way :) We might follow your lead on this, as we have done with so many other great ideas implemented in D. Ironically, Vexu started from the other side as you, with the preprocessor mostly done, but the backend left to-do: https://github.com/Vexu/arocc One thing that might make libclang worth the cost, however, is its ability to compile C++ code as well. On Zig's end of things, all we have to do is provide libcxx, libcxxabi, libunwind, compiler-rt, and linking, and then libclang is really pulling a lot of weight by compiling C++ code into object files. Sadly this