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Finch/bootstrap
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Filename Latest commit message Latest commit date
Nexoniarz dc0334fa0e Programs built by the Finch compiler free their memory 
gen.fch never dropped anything (it was the bootstrap compiler); now it does what the C++ one did: owned variables are
dropped when their scope ends (defers interleaved, newest first), return moves a local out, assignments drop the old
value, temporaries nobody keeps are released, values an expression holds are dropped when try/or leave early,
clear/resize/remove/map.clear drop what goes, free() drops the pointee. The compiler itself now frees as it goes.

MEMCHECK=1 tests/run.sh: 108 passed under valgrind with --leak-check=full.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_015f73FesGZGYPkmDvUcj6QX
2026-10-25 22:45:39 +01:00
..
build.sh The compiler carries its runtime and std inside itself; host module for the system it runs on 2026-10-25 22:32:02 +01:00
install.sh Install, CI, seeds and docs for the compiler written in Finch 2026-10-25 21:53:50 +01:00
linux-aarch64.ll Programs built by the Finch compiler free their memory 2026-10-25 22:45:39 +01:00
linux-x86_64.ll Programs built by the Finch compiler free their memory 2026-10-25 22:45:39 +01:00
pack.sh The compiler carries its runtime and std inside itself; host module for the system it runs on 2026-10-25 22:32:02 +01:00
README.md Install, CI, seeds and docs for the compiler written in Finch 2026-10-25 21:53:50 +01:00

README.md

The seed

Finch's compiler is written in Finch. To build it you need something that already runs Finch: the seed, which is the compiler's own LLVM IR, one file per system:

File System Checked
linux-x86_64.ll Linux x86-64 built and tested here and in CI
linux-aarch64.ll Linux ARM64 made with the ARM64 cross compiler; CI builds and tests it on an ARM64 runner

bootstrap/build.sh compiles the seed with clang (and the runtime, and libclang) into build/finch0; finch0 builds src/ into finch1; finch1 builds src/ again into build/finch; the two must make the same IR, or the script stops.

Why one per system

The seed includes how this system's C compiler passes structs by value, because the compiler calls libclang with CXCursor, CXType and CXString (the calling convention is different on x86-64, on ARM64 and on Windows). So a seed made for one system doesn't run on another, and a seed needs the target system's C headers to be made.

When to make a new one

When the compiler's own source starts to use a feature that the committed seed doesn't have, build.sh fails at the first step. Make the seed from a working compiler:

bootstrap/build.sh seed            # writes bootstrap/<this system>.ll

For another system, from a machine that has that system's headers and a cross compiler (what tests/cross.sh uses):

FINCH_CC=aarch64-linux-gnu-gcc build/finch ir src/main.fch --target arm64 > bootstrap/linux-aarch64.ll

macOS and Windows

There is no seed for them yet: it needs Apple's or Microsoft's headers, which can't be had on Linux. Until there is one, programs for macOS and Windows are built from Linux with --target macos|windows, and the compiler's older C++ version (branch before-bootstrap) is the way to get a compiler that runs there.