Build hcc from source¶

scripts/build-linux.sh --install-hcc does all of this for you. This page covers the same steps by hand, plus the options you might want to change.

Requirements¶

Linux or macOS, on x86_64 or AArch64 (Windows: inside WSL2)
A C compiler (gcc or clang), make, cmake, git

Clone¶

git clone https://github.com/Jamesbarford/holyc-lang.git
cd holyc-lang

hcc changes quickly, and it's beta software. To get exactly the version these examples were tested against:

git checkout 06ca61140ef143fe83218a33dbc9cf9e2c199509

The latest master will probably work too. If it doesn't, check Compiler quirks and the upstream issue tracker before assuming your code is wrong.

Build and install¶

The top-level Makefile wraps CMake. It installs to /usr/local unless you set INSTALL_PREFIX:

Into ~/.local (no root)System-wide

mkdir -p ~/.local/bin ~/.local/lib ~/.local/include
make INSTALL_PREFIX="$HOME/.local"
make install

make
sudo make install

make install puts three things under the prefix:

Path	What it is
`bin/hcc`	the compiler
`lib/libtos.a`, `lib/libtos.so*`	the HolyC runtime library (strings, memory, files, hash tables, `printf`)
`include/tos.HH`	declarations for that library, included into every program automatically

The prefix is compiled into hcc, which is how it finds tos.HH and libtos later. If you move them, either rebuild hcc or pass --install-dir=<prefix> on every compile.

Create the lib directory first

If <prefix>/lib doesn't exist, make install fails partway through. That's why the first command above creates it.

Build options¶

Option	Default	Effect
`INSTALL_PREFIX`	`/usr/local`	where `make install` puts things
`C_COMPILER`	`gcc`	compiler used to build hcc itself
`BUILD_TYPE`	`Release`	CMake build type; `Debug` to debug hcc
`-DHCC_LINK_SQLITE3=1`	off	adds SQLite bindings to the runtime; edit the `Makefile` to pass it

The JIT (hcc -jit) and the REPL (hcc -repl) are enabled by the default Makefile build.

Run hcc's own tests¶

make unit-test

Environment¶

hcc doesn't read any environment variables you need to set. Two things matter:

PATH must include <prefix>/bin so your shell finds hcc.
cc must be on PATH at compile time. hcc calls it to assemble and link. Programs built with hcc don't need hcc or libtos at runtime, because libtos is linked statically. They only need the shared C libraries they #link (SDL2, SDL2_image, GL).

Updating¶

cd holyc-lang
git pull
make INSTALL_PREFIX="$HOME/.local" && make install

Then rerun ./scripts/check.sh in this repo to see if anything broke.