Lensor Compiler Collection

Often abbreviated LCC, the Lensor Compiler Collection is a collection of compilers (frontends) that target LCC IR, libraries that perform operations on LCC IR, and code-generating libraries (backends).

LCC exists so that you may implement your language without

• A.) having to learn GCC internals, and
• B.) having to build LLVM (can your computer even do it?).

The mantra: no third-party dependencies. Everything in-house and from scratch. This prevents beginners running into unending linker errors (ahem, LLVM), as well as having to figure out all the right flags and options to pass to a configure script (ahem, GCC). While this does create head-aches (shudders in register allocation), it also means that nothing is “hidden”. If you want to know how something works, the code is right here in the codebase, written in a familiar style.

Usage

For convenience purposes, there is a single executable, lcc, that can delegate between all of the different compilers in the collection. This is called the compiler driver, often shortened to just driver. Languages may choose to implement a standalone executable that only compiles their language, but it is not required, and they are not built/distributed by default.

Running the driver executable with the --help argument will display a usage message that contains compiler flags and options as well as command layout.

The driver, by default, uses file extension to determine which language to treat the source as. lcc examples/glint/SimpleFile.g will treat the contents as Glint source, while lcc tst/ir/roundtrip.lcc will treat the contents as LCC IR, for example . You can use -x LANG to treat source files as a particular language, regardless of extension.

Building

Dependencies:

• CMake >= 3.20
• Any C++ Compiler (We like GCC)

NOTE: If on Windows and using Visual Studio, see this document instead. Also, switch to Linux :^).

First, generate a build tree using CMake.

cmake -B bld

Finally, build an executable from the build tree.

cmake --build bld

You’ll probably want to build it in parallel, otherwise it might take a minute.

cmake --build bld --parallel 7

Implemented Languages

• Glint | Low Level, Higher Order

See relevant documentation.

In the future, we hope to support

• some of C
• YOUR language :) (it’s easy, really)