TCC-DOC(1)

💅 NAME 💅

Okay bestie, welcome to the TCC-DOC(1) manual — the whole vibe is tcc, aka the Tiny C Compiler. She's tiny, she's iconic, and she's about to make C feel a little more main-character. 💖

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

usage: tcc [options] [infile1 infile2...] [-run infile args...]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

TCC options are very much like gcc options — fr fr. The main difference? TCC can also execute directly the resulting program and give it runtime arguments. That's the plot twist, and it's honestly kind of iconic. ✨

Here are some examples to understand the logic:

• tcc -run a.c — Compile a.c and execute it directly
• tcc -run a.c arg1 — Compile a.c and execute it directly. arg1 is given as first argument to the main() of a.c.
• tcc a.c -run b.c arg1 — Compile a.c and b.c, link them together and execute them. arg1 is given as first argument to the main() of the resulting program.
• tcc -o myprog a.c b.c — Compile a.c and b.c, link them and generate the executable myprog.
• tcc -o myprog a.o b.o — link a.o and b.o together and generate the executable myprog.
• tcc -c a.c — Compile a.c and generate object file a.o.
• tcc -c asmfile.S — Preprocess with C preprocess and assemble asmfile.S and generate object file asmfile.o.
• tcc -c asmfile.s — Assemble (but not preprocess) asmfile.s and generate object file asmfile.o.
• tcc -r -o ab.o a.c b.c — Compile a.c and b.c, link them together and generate the object file ab.o.

🪄 Scripting 🪄

TCC can be invoked from scripts, just as shell scripts. You just need to add #!/usr/local/bin/tcc -run at the start of your C source:

#!/usr/local/bin/tcc -run
#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    printf("Hello World\n");
    return 0;
}

TCC can read C source code from standard input when - is used in place of infile. Example:

echo 'main(){puts("hello");}' | tcc -run -

💖 OPTIONS 💖

• -c — Generate an object file.
• -o outfile — Put object file, executable, or dll into output file outfile.
• -run source [args...] — Compile file source and run it with the command line arguments args. In order to be able to give more than one argument to a script, several TCC options can be given after the -run option, separated by spaces:

tcc "-run -L/usr/X11R6/lib -lX11" ex4.c

In a script, it gives the following header:

#!/usr/local/bin/tcc -run -L/usr/X11R6/lib -lX11

• -v — Display TCC version.
• -vv — Show included files. As sole argument, print search dirs. -vvv shows tries too.
• -bench — Display compilation statistics.

🧼 Preprocessor options 🧼

• -Idir — Specify an additional include path. Include paths are searched in the order they are specified.

System include paths are always searched after. The default system include paths are: /usr/local/include, /usr/include and PREFIX/lib/tcc/include. (PREFIX is usually /usr or /usr/local).

• -isystem dir — Specify a system include path to be added to the defaults.
• -nostdinc — Do not search the default system include paths; only search include paths provided on the command line.
• -include file — Include file above each input file.
• -Dsym[=val] — Define preprocessor symbol sym to val. If val is not present, its value is 1. Function-like macros can also be defined: -DF(a)=a+1
• -Usym — Undefine preprocessor symbol sym.
• -E — Preprocess only, to stdout or file (with -o).
• -P — Do not output "#line" directives.
• -P1 — Output alternative "#line" directives.
• -dD, -dM — Output "#define" directives.
• -Wp,-opt — Same as -opt.

🌈 Compilation flags 🌈

Note: each of the following options has a negative form beginning with -fno-.

• -funsigned-char — Let the "char" type be unsigned.
• -fsigned-char — Let the "char" type be signed.
• -fno-common — Do not generate common symbols for uninitialized data.
• -fleading-underscore — Add a leading underscore at the beginning of each C symbol.
• -fms-extensions — Allow a MS C compiler extensions to the language. Currently this assumes a nested named structure declaration without an identifier behaves like an unnamed one.
• -fdollars-in-identifiers — Allow dollar signs in identifiers
• -freverse-funcargs — Evaluate function arguments right to left.
• -fgnu89-inline — "extern inline" is like "static inline".
• -fasynchronous-unwind-tables — Create eh_frame section [on]
• -ftest-coverage — Create code coverage code. After running the resulting code an executable.tcov or sofile.tcov file is generated with code coverage.

⚠️ Warning options ⚠️

• -w — Disable all warnings.

Note: each of the following warning options has a negative form beginning with -Wno-.

• -Wimplicit-function-declaration — Warn about implicit function declaration (missing prototype).
• -Wdiscarded-qualifiers — Warn when const is dropped.
• -Wunsupported — Warn about unsupported GCC features that are ignored by TCC.
• -Wwrite-strings — Make string constants be of type "const char *" instead of "char *".
• -Werror — Abort compilation if a warning is issued. Can be given an option to enable the specified warning and turn it into an error, for example -Werror=unsupported.
• -Wall — Activate some useful warnings (-Wimplicit-function-declaration, -Wdiscard-qualifiers).

🔗 Linker options 🔗

• -Ldir — Specify an additional static library path for the -l option. The default library paths are /usr/local/lib, /usr/lib and /lib.
• -lxxx — Link your program with dynamic library libxxx.so or static library libxxx.a. The library is searched in the paths specified by the -L option and LIBRARY_PATH variable.
• -Bdir — Set the path where the tcc internal libraries (and include files) can be found (default is PREFIX/lib/tcc).
• -shared — Generate a shared library instead of an executable.
• -soname name — set name for shared library to be used at runtime
• -static — Generate a statically linked executable (default is a shared linked executable).
• -rdynamic — Export global symbols to the dynamic linker. It is useful when a library opened with dlopen() needs to access executable symbols.
• -r — Generate an object file combining all input files.
• -nostdlib — Don't implicitly link with libc, the C runtime files, and libtcc1.
• -Wl,-nostdlib — Don't search the default paths for libraries (/usr/local/lib, /usr/lib and /lib). Only the paths specified with -L and LIBRARY_PATH are searched.
• -Wl,-rpath=path — Put custom search path for dynamic libraries into executable.
• -Wl,-Ipath, -Wl,--dynamic-linker=path — Set the ELF interpreter (dynamic linker). This defaults to the value of the environment variable LD_SO if set, or a compiled-in default.
• -Wl,--enable-new-dtags — When putting a custom search path for dynamic libraries into the executable, create the new ELF dynamic tag DT_RUNPATH instead of the old legacy DT_RPATH.
• -Wl,--oformat=fmt — Use fmt as output format. The supported output formats are:
  • "elf32-i386" — ELF output format (default)
  • "binary" — Binary image (only for executable output)
  • "coff" — COFF output format (only for executable output for TMS320C67xx target)
• -Wl,--export-all-symbols, -Wl,--export-dynamic — Export global symbols to the dynamic linker. It is useful when a library opened with dlopen() needs to access executable symbols.
• -Wl,-subsystem=console/gui/wince/... — Set type for PE (Windows) executables.
• -Wl,-[Ttext=# | section-alignment=# | file-alignment=# | image-base=# | stack=#] — Modify executable layout.
• -Wl,-Bsymbolic — Set DT_SYMBOLIC tag.
• -Wl,-(no-)whole-archive — Turn on/off linking of all objects in archives.

🐞 Debugger options 🐞

• -g — Generate run time stab debug information so that you get clear run time error messages: test.c:68: in function 'test5()': dereferencing invalid pointer instead of the laconic Segmentation fault.
• -gdwarf[-x] — Generate run time dwarf debug information instead of stab debug information.
• -b — Generate additional support code to check memory allocations and array/pointer bounds. -g is implied.
• -bt[N] — Display N callers in stack traces. This is useful with -g or -b. When activated, "__TCC_BACKTRACE__" is defined.

With executables, additional support for stack traces is included. A function

 int tcc_backtrace(const char *fmt, ...);

is provided to trigger a stack trace with a message on demand.

🧚 Misc options 🧚

• -std=version — Define "__STDC_VERSION__": 201112 if version is c11 or gnu11; 199901 otherwise.
• -x[c|a|b|n] — Specify content of next input file: respectively C, assembly, binary, or none.
• -O[n] — Same as -D__OPTIMIZE__ except for -O0.
• -pthread — Preprocess with -D_REENTRANT, link with -lpthread.
• -M — Just output makefile fragment with dependencies
• -MM — Like -M except mention only user header files, not system header files.
• -MD — Generate makefile fragment with dependencies.
• -MMD — Like -MD except mention only user header files, not system header files.
• -MF depfile — Use depfile as output for -MD.
• -MP — Mention all dependencies as targets too.
• -print-search-dirs — Print the configured installation directory and a list of library and include directories tcc will search.
• -dumpversion — Print version.
• -dt — With -run/-E: auto-define 'test_...' macros

🎯 Target specific options 🎯

• -mms-bitfields — Use an algorithm for bitfield alignment consistent with MSVC. Default is gcc's algorithm.
• -mfloat-abi (ARM only) — Select the float ABI. Possible values: "softfp" and "hard"
• -mno-sse — Do not use sse registers on x86_64
• -m32, -m64 — Pass command line to the i386/x86_64 cross compiler.

Note: GCC options -fx and -mx are ignored.

🌍 ENVIRONMENT 🌍

Environment variables that affect how tcc operates.

• CPATH, C_INCLUDE_PATH — A colon-separated list of directories searched for include files, directories given with -I are searched first.
• LIBRARY_PATH — A colon-separated list of directories searched for libraries for the -l option, directories given with -L are searched first.

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

cpp(1), gcc(1)

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Fabrice Bellard

Okay, this page is from the TCC-DOC(1) manual, version 0.9.28rc, dated 2026-02-02 💖✨🫶