AMaCC = Another Mini ARM C Compiler

Introduction

AMaCC is built from scratch, targeted at 32-bit ARM architecture. There are 3 execution modes AMaCC implements:

• Just-in-Time compiler (JITC) for ARM backend
• Generate valid Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) executables
• Interpreter-only execution

Indeed, AMaCC is designed to compile the minimal subset of C required to self-host. For example, global variables and, in particular, global arrays are there.

Compatibility

AMaCC is capable of compiling C source files written in the following syntax:

• data types: char, int, struct, and pointer
• condition statements: if, while, for, switch, case, break, return, and general expressions
• compound assignments: +=, -=, *=

The architecture support targets armv7hf with Linux ABI.

Prerequisites

• Code generator in AMaCC relies on several GNU/Linux behaviors, and it is necessary to have ARM/Linux installed in your build environment.

• Install Linaro ARM Toolchain

  • Check "Latest Linux Targeted Binary Toolchain Releases"
  • Select arm-linux-gnueabihf (32-bit Armv7-a, hard-float, little-endian)

• Install QEMU for ARM user emulation

sudo apt-get install qemu-user

Running AMaCC

Run make check and you should see this:

[ C to IR translation          ] Passed
[ JIT compilation + execution  ] Passed
[ ELF generation               ] Passed
[ nested/self compilation      ] Passed
[ Compatibility with GCC/Arm   ] ......................................

Internals

Check Intermediate Representation (IR) for AMaCC Compilation.

Acknowledgements

AMaCC is based on the infrastructure of c4.

Related Materials

• Curated list of awesome resources on Compilers, Interpreters and Runtimes
• Hacker News discussions