Cyclone Language Compiler

Cyclone is a safe dialect of C. It is designed to prevent buffer overflows, format string attacks, and memory management errors that are common in C programs, while retaining C's syntax and low-level control.

This repository contains the source code for the Cyclone compiler, a self-hosting, source-to-source compiler that translates Cyclone code into C.

Build Instructions

The project uses Bazel for its build system.

To build the entire project:

bazel build //cyclone/...

To run the test suite:

bazel test //testsuite/...

Project Structure

• library/: Contains the core compiler source code and standard libraries.
  • library/compiler/: The Cyclone compiler implementation (written in Cyclone).
  • library/banshee/: Constraint solver used for flow analysis.
  • library/std/: The Cyclone standard library.
• testsuite/: Comprehensive test suite for the compiler.
• tools/: various utilities.
• build_defs.bzl: Custom Bazel definitions for the Cyclone build process.

Architecture Overview

The Cyclone compiler follows a classic multi-pass architecture but utilizes a mutable AST design where passes often modify the Abstract Syntax Tree in place.

1. Parsing: Uses bison (parse.cyy) and a custom lexer (lex.cyl) to produce an AST.
2. Semantic Analysis: A modular type-checking system (tc*.cyc) traverses the AST, enforcing Cyclone's advanced type rules (regions, pointers, effects). It relies on the Banshee constraint solver.
3. Transformation/Lowering: Several passes transform the AST to simplify it (e.g., remove_aggregates.cyc, lower.cyc).
4. Code Generation: The toc.cyc pass translates the Cyclone AST into a C AST, which is then emitted as C code.

Contributing

See the library/compiler directory for more details on the compiler internals.