tiny C compiler on the kindle

[lrizzo]

I have prepared a version of the Tiny C compiler (tcc) that can run on the Kindle.
You can find it at http://info.iet.unipi.it/~luigi/kindle/#TCC-for-Kindle

For those who don't know, tcc is a single, small binary that can compile and runs C code on the fly. The only serious impairment (common to all C compilers) is that you often need a ton of headers to build anything useful;
however, i am preparing a workaround which allows you to put all the definitions in a single file and ignore errors for missing headers.

For those who want to give it a try -- the tarball contains the compiler, tcc, and some tiny objects (crt*.o) which you should put in /usr/lib (they are not needed if you just want to run code on the fly).
Then edit your favourite hello world program and run it with
tcc -run helloworld.c

[NiLuJe]

Nice! .

I'll stick with my usual full fledged cross toolchain, but, still, it might be nice for on-the-fly very small C utils .

[kindle3zeng]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Nice! .

I'll stick with my usual full fledged cross toolchain, but, still, it might be nice for on-the-fly very small C utils .

could you share me where you got your cross toolchain? I've tried several cross toolchain, either of them worked.
scratchbox-toolchain and sourcecody doesn't compile the simple helloworld
the cross-compiler coming with ubuntu did compile, but it produced a segment fault on kindle at frame_dummy().

[NiLuJe]

@kindle3zeng: I use a cross (right now, with an i686 GNU/Linux host) toolchain built using the crosstool-ng tool.

The actual config/shell history of the current build I'm using is detailed in the kindle-x-tc.tar.gz archive attached here.

Unless you build against glibc 2.5 (which I don't), you may have to use some trickery to avoid pulling more recent GLIBC_* symbols on some projects.

[curstpriest]

that and it might take like 10 hours to compile some stuff =X

[kindle3zeng]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@kindle3zeng: I use a cross (right now, with an i686 GNU/Linux host) toolchain built using the crosstool-ng tool.

The actual config/shell history of the current build I'm using is detailed in the kindle-x-tc.tar.gz archive attached here.

Unless you build against glibc 2.5 (which I don't), you may have to use some trickery to avoid pulling more recent GLIBC_* symbols on some projects.

Thanks for your tips.
I compiled a toolchain with glibc with crosstool-ng. and right now I am trying to compile one with the glibc 2.5 from amazon.

[NiLuJe]

Note that you can probably pretty much replicate the Kindle toolchain (gcc 4.1.2/glibc 2.5/Linux 2.6.22) with ct-ng if you enable the 'deprecated' option, no need to build it manually from amazon's tarballs.

And, unless you intend to build a whole lot of crap, you'll probably be good to go with a recent TC. I haven't yet hit a real TC related ABI mismatch showstopper with what I built so far.

And I'm really, really not a fan of using a 3.5 years old TC, so I'm glad I haven't had to use a GCC 4.1 based TC .

Granted, with a kindle-like (ie. old) TC, at least you'll be mostly 100% sure it will run without issue on the Kindle, which is not really the case with my current TC, but, hey, where's the fun in that? .

[jmseight]

Hi,

I got hello world to run, but only once, and then get illegal instruction the second time.

Also, do you have the header files?

Thanks,
James

[geekmaster]

I packaged up lrizzo's tcc build, with the tinycc headers and the amazon gpl 5.0.0 headers, plus I added install and uninstall scripts, and a tccmake script to add the header include path and bind-mount a tcc-compatible replacement libc.so loader script needed to use this on newer kindles. I also include a demo.c program in the package, so it is ready to compile and test immediately after installing.

geekmaster's simple guide to tcc (tinycc):
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=175834

Although my demos run several times faster when compiled with a cross-toolchain, using tinycc (tcc) on the device is a LOT easier for development and testing, then doing a full cross-build for final distribution.

[geekmaster]

The tcc download link link at lrizzo's web page linked above is missing a tilde ('~') character. You can get his program packaged with an installer and with everything you need to use it on all eink kindles, at the link provided in my previous post above.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by curstpriest

that and it might take like 10 hours to compile some stuff =X

Actually, tcc compiles MUCH faster than gcc, but the resulting code is not as fast. It took me 12 hours to compile X11 on my K3 using gcc from the debian arm distro, but I suspect with tcc it would only be 2 or 3 hours (based on experience comparing the x86 versions of tcc and gcc).

[jmiller099]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

I packaged up lrizzo's tcc build, with the tinycc headers and the amazon gpl 5.0.0 headers, plus I added install and uninstall scripts, and a tccmake script to add the header include path and bind-mount a tcc-compatible replacement libc.so loader script needed to use this on newer kindles. I also include a demo.c program in the package, so it is ready to compile and test immediately after installing.

geekmaster's simple guide to tcc (tinycc):
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=175834

Although my demos run several times faster when compiled with a cross-toolchain, using tinycc (tcc) on the device is a LOT easier for development and testing, then doing a full cross-build for final distribution.

Many thanks to you and lrizzo for this! Some quick feedback.

Downloaded the geekmaster package with the highest version number.

tccmake of demo.c and then executing it seg fault.

tccmake of my helloworld was okay. So then I went a little more complex and tried an eightball app my friend wrote and it was successful. Then I really pushed it by trying my eslisten program which uses pthread. To my surprise stat and fstat weren't available as unfindable by the linker. Pulling the libs to my computer and dumpobj it was confirmed as truth.

Then, after seeing what linaro's cross compiler did with those function calls via hex editing the binary and searching stat came to know about __xstat and __fxstat. After doing the needful, it successfully ran!

tldr; if you have to use stat, then use __xstat(3, filename, &statstruct); and if fstat then use __fxstat(3, filehandle, &statstruct);

[knc1]

Did you notice you are posting to an eight year old thread?
Did it occur to you that there might have been changes/updates/corrections to tinyc in the past eight years?

Translation:
Mostly you are wasting your time by not using what is current.
Posting in a current thread (which you create, they are cheap here) what you find the current situation to be.

[nasser]

@jmiller099: demo.c doesn't work on PW1, PW2... but works OK on PW3, KT3! Maybe the code needs to be tweaked to suit the 1024x758 resolution.

@knc1:The version here is 0.9.25. The mainstream version was bumped up to 0.9.27 in Dec-17.