Show HN: Xcc700: Self-hosting mini C compiler for ESP32 (Xtensa) in 700 lines

Hacker News (score: 47)

Found: December 26, 2025

ID: 2807

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Show HN: Xcc700: Self-hosting mini C compiler for ESP32 (Xtensa) in 700 lines Repo: https://github.com/valdanylchuk/xcc700

Hi Everyone! I just wrote my first compiler!

- single pass, recursive descent, direct emission

- generates REL ELF binaries, runnable using ESP-IDF elf_loader

- very basic features only, just enough for self-hosting

- treats the Xtensa CPU as a stack machine for simplicity, no register allocation / window usage

- compilable on Mac, probably also Linux, can cross-compile for esp32 there

- wrote for fun / cyberdeck project

Sample output from esp32:

    xcc700.elf xcc700.c -o /d/cc.elf
    
    [ xcc700 ] BUILD COMPLETED > OK
    > IN  : 700 Lines / 7977 Tokens
    > SYM : 69 Funcs / 91 Globals
    > REL : 152 Literals / 1027 Patches
    > MEM : 1041 B .rodata / 17120 B .bss
    > OUT : 27735 B .text / 33300 B ELF
    [ 40 ms ] >> 17500 Lines/sec <<

My best hope is that some fork might grow into a unique nice language tailored to the esp32 platform. I think it is underrated in userland hobby projects.

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