ObjectiveTcc
Tinycc as an Objective-C framework. The goal is a compact/fast code-generator for Objective-Smalltalk.
Steps
This is a rough overview.
- Package as framework
- Mach-O writer
- Generate code without C source code
- Objective-C message sending
Progress
- Available as a framework, with in-process tests
- Callable from Objective-Smalltalk
- Starts of a Mach-O reader (needed to verify any writer)
- Sent an Objective-C message from TCC generated codee (via objc_msgSend() )
- Generated/called an empty without any C source code, just by calling the codegen functions within TCC.
Up next
- Factor the code-gen and enable more functionality (arguments, arithmeetic, ...)
- Disentangle output generation from ELF-specifics if necessary
- Write Mach-O with canned data
- Hook up TCC codegen to Mach-O writer
Background/Motivation
I have an LLVM-based code-generation backend, but LLVM is way too cumbersome, with long compile-times, gigantic binaries, C++ etc.
In addition, all the sophisticated machinery is almost certainly of little or no benefit for Objective-Smalltalk.