rui314/9cc

Health v2 · maintenance only

Flags: no_releases

Adoption not part of the score

1949 stars · 156 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

9cc is a small C compiler written in C that compiles source code to x86-64 assembly through a simple, readable pipeline of parsing, semantic analysis, IR generation, register allocation, and code generation. It is designed for extreme code clarity rather than performance or full C compliance, and has been superseded by the author's chibicc project.

Use cases

• learn how a C compiler works by reading a small codebase
• study recursive descent parsing without lex/yacc
• see how register allocation and IR generation are implemented
• compile small C programs to x86-64 assembly
• use as a base for building your own compiler

When to choose

• you want a minimal, easy-to-read compiler implementation for learning
• you need a simple C-to-x86-64 compiler for experimentation or teaching

When to avoid

• you need a production C compiler - use GCC or Clang
• you need full C standard compliance or optimizations
• you want an actively maintained project - use chibicc instead

Facets

cli-tool · maturity abandoned

compiler parser developer-tools compilers programming-languages developer-tools education cpp cli c-compiler x86-64 recursive-descent-parser learning-project retired compiler linux

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