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Cake - C23 and Beyond

The C Programming language 1978

"C is a general-purpose programming language which features economy of expression, modern control flow and data structures, and a rich set of operators. C is not a "very high level" language, nor a "big" one, and is not specialized to any particular area of application. But its absence of restrictions and its generality make it more convenient and effective for many tasks than supposedly more powerful languages."

"In our experience, C has proven to be a pleasant, expressive, and versatile language for a wide variety of programs. It is easy to learn, and it wears well as one's experience with it grows"

The C Programming language Second Edition 1988

"As we said in the preface to the first edition, C "wears well as one's experience with it grows." With a decade more experience, we still feel that way."

C is everywhere. From operating systems to embedded devices, from high-performance apps to essential technology, C powers the technology we rely on every day. Timeless, efficient, and universal.

🍰 Cake

Cake is a compiler front-end written from scratch in C, adhering to the C23 language specification and beyond.

It serves as a platform for experimenting with new features, including C2Y language proposals, safety enhancements, and extensions such as literal functions and defer statements.

The current backend generates C89-compatible code, which can be pipelined with existing or old compilers to produce executables. 

    [source] ───────────► [preprocessor]  ───────────► [compiler]  
       │                                           ▲                
       └─► [cake preprocessor] ──►[cake compiler] ─┘ c89

Cake aims to enhance C's safety by providing high-quality warning messages and advanced flow analysis, including object lifetime checks.

Web Playground

This is the best way to try.

http://cakecc.org/playground.html

Use cases

Note: Cake is still in development and has not yet reached a stable version.

Cake can be used as a static analyzer alongside other compilers. It generates SARIF files, which are recognized by popular IDEs such as Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code, providing a seamless integration.

It can also function as a preprocessor, converting C23 code to C89. This allows developers to use modern or experimental features while targeting compilers that do not yet support the latest language standards.

Previous versions of Cake included a conversion mode to translate code while preserving the preprocessor parts.

Although useful, this process could not guarantee 100% conversion, functioning more as a tool than a compiler. With the new versions of Cake moving toward becoming a more traditional compiler, the previous mode has been discontinued at version 0.9.36.

Features

Build

GitHub https://github.com/thradams/cake

MSVC build instructions

Open the Developer Command Prompt of visual studio. Go to the src directory and type

cl build.c && build

This will build cake.exe, then run cake on its own source code.

GCC on Linux build instructions

Got to the src directory and type:

gcc build.c -o build && ./build

Clang on Linux/Windows/MacOS build instructions

Got to the src directory and type:

clang build.c -o build && ./build

To run unit tests windows/linux add -DTEST for instance:

gcc -DTEST build.c -o build && ./build

Emscripten build instructions (web)

Emscripten https://emscripten.org/ is required.

First do the normal build.

The normal build also generates a file lib.c that is the amalgamated version of the "core lib".

Then at ./src dir type:

call emcc -DMOCKFILES "lib.c" -o "Web\cakejs.js" -s WASM=0 -s EXPORTED_FUNCTIONS="['_CompileText']" -s EXTRA_EXPORTED_RUNTIME_METHODS="['ccall', 'cwrap']"

This will generate the \src\Web\cake.js

Running cake at command line

Make sure cake is on your system path.

Samples

cake source.c

this will output ./out/source.c

See Manual

Road map

Participating

You can contribute by trying out cake, reporting bugs, and giving feedback.

Have a suggestion for C?

DISCORD SERVER

https://discord.gg/YRekr2N65S

How cake is developed?

I use Visual Studio 2022 IDE to write and debug the Cake source. Cake parses itself using the MSVC includes and generates the X_86_msvc directory after the build. The Linux version is tested inside WSL, and the macOS version is currently the least tested but is expected to work.

Cake x CFront

CFront was the first C++ compiler, designed to translate C++ source code into C. Initially compatible with C89, it diverged as the C and C++ languages evolved independently.

Cake maintains alignment with the standard specifications and ongoing development of C, ensuring full compatibility.

The compiler introduces extensions that preserve the fundamental design of C while supporting experimentation and open contributions to the language's evolution.