Re: [Tinycc-devel] C versions (was Re: Re : Re: Re : Re: Where do I get pthread.h?)

[gz8cx4]

On Fri, Feb 09, 2024 at 09:24:27PM +0100, Страхиња Радић wrote:
> C99 is recommended by suckless movement, fully supported by GCC and 
> LLVM/Clang, 
> and mostly supported by tcc and similar lightweight compilers (VLAs being one 
> of the more noticeable missing features). IMHO it is the optimal incarnation 
> of 
> C, and what tcc should set as the first priority to fully support.

+1

It is also very helpful that Tiny CC is still written in more or less
ANSI C. This is vital for toolchain bootstrapping, that a compiler is
formulated in the previous version of the language.

Not least, this was essential for the VSOBFS project (mentioned on this
list last year[1]).

Regarding VLA: it is a somewhat controversial feature, because it implies
run time memory allocation behind the scenes, without any means for the
programmer to handle situations when the allocation would fail.

Then programs can misbehave, potentially in obscure and dangerous ways.

Thus, if I might ask Tiny CC developers for a favor, as far as possible,
please do not use C99 or later features in Tiny CC itself.

Regards,
/tccm

[1] https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/tinycc-devel/2023-03/msg00004.html