cosmopolitan/libc
Justine Tunney 9e3e985ae5 Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere
Here's some screenshots of an emulator tui program that was compiled on
Linux, then scp'd it to Windows, Mac, and FreeBSD.

https://justine.storage.googleapis.com/blinkenlights-cmdexe.png
https://justine.storage.googleapis.com/blinkenlights-imac.png
https://justine.storage.googleapis.com/blinkenlights-freebsd.png
https://justine.storage.googleapis.com/blinkenlights-lisp.png

How is this even possible that we have a nontrivial ui binary that just
works on Mac, Windows, Linux, and BSD? Surely a first ever achievement.

Fixed many bugs. Bootstrapped John McCarthy's metacircular evaluator on
bare metal in half the size of Altair BASIC (about 2.5kb) and ran it in
emulator for fun and profit.
2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
..
alg Add fixes performance and static web server 2020-10-05 23:11:49 -07:00
bits Make more improvements 2020-09-28 01:20:34 -07:00
calls Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
conv Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
crt Make improvements 2020-09-14 00:02:34 -07:00
crypto Get address sanitizer mostly working 2020-09-03 05:44:37 -07:00
dns Get address sanitizer mostly working 2020-09-03 05:44:37 -07:00
elf Make improvements 2020-09-14 00:02:34 -07:00
escape Add glob and some finer tuning of documentation 2020-06-21 15:23:35 -07:00
fmt Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
integral Add fixes performance and static web server 2020-10-05 23:11:49 -07:00
internal Add x86_64-linux-gnu emulator 2020-08-25 04:43:42 -07:00
intrin Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
isystem Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
linux Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
log Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
math Get address sanitizer mostly working 2020-09-03 05:44:37 -07:00
mem Get address sanitizer mostly working 2020-09-03 05:44:37 -07:00
nexgen32e Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
nt Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
ohmyplus Add NES emulator 2020-07-02 13:46:08 -07:00
rand Add x86_64-linux-gnu emulator 2020-08-25 04:43:42 -07:00
runtime Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
sock Add fixes performance and static web server 2020-10-05 23:11:49 -07:00
stdio Add fixes performance and static web server 2020-10-05 23:11:49 -07:00
str Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
stubs Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
sysv Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
testlib Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
time Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
tinymath Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
unicode Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
x Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
zipos Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
README.md Add x86_64-linux-gnu emulator 2020-08-25 04:43:42 -07:00
assert.h Initial import 2020-06-15 07:18:57 -07:00
complex.h Add x86_64-linux-gnu emulator 2020-08-25 04:43:42 -07:00
dce.h Add x86_64-linux-gnu emulator 2020-08-25 04:43:42 -07:00
disclaimer.inc Initial import 2020-06-15 07:18:57 -07:00
dos.h Add fixes performance and static web server 2020-10-05 23:11:49 -07:00
errno.h Add x86_64-linux-gnu emulator 2020-08-25 04:43:42 -07:00
inttypes.h Initial import 2020-06-15 07:18:57 -07:00
libc.mk Add x86_64-linux-gnu emulator 2020-08-25 04:43:42 -07:00
limits.h Add x86_64-linux-gnu emulator 2020-08-25 04:43:42 -07:00
literal.h Initial import 2020-06-15 07:18:57 -07:00
mach.h Initial import 2020-06-15 07:18:57 -07:00
macho.h Add x86_64-linux-gnu emulator 2020-08-25 04:43:42 -07:00
macros-cpp.inc Add x86_64-linux-gnu emulator 2020-08-25 04:43:42 -07:00
macros.h Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
macros.inc Add x86_64-linux-gnu emulator 2020-08-25 04:43:42 -07:00
math.h Make improvements 2020-09-14 00:02:34 -07:00
notice.inc Add scouts honor escape hatch for source embedding 2020-06-15 19:01:28 -07:00
paths.h Initial import 2020-06-15 07:18:57 -07:00
pe.h Add x86_64-linux-gnu emulator 2020-08-25 04:43:42 -07:00
typename.h Initial import 2020-06-15 07:18:57 -07:00
tzfile.h Make terminal ui binaries work well everywhere 2020-10-19 06:38:31 -07:00
wave.h Initial import 2020-06-15 07:18:57 -07:00
zip.h Add fixes performance and static web server 2020-10-05 23:11:49 -07:00

README.md

SYNOPSIS

Cosmopolitan Standard Library.

OVERVIEW

This directory defines static archives defining functions, like printf(), mmap(), win32, etc. Please note that the Cosmopolitan build configuration doesn't link any C/C++ library dependencies by default, so you still have the flexibility to choose the one provided by your system. If you'd prefer Cosmopolitan, just add (LIBC) and (CRT) to your linker arguments.

Your library is compromised of many bite-sized static archives. We use the checkdeps tool to guarantee that the contents of the archives are organized in a logical way that's easy to use with or without our makefile infrastructure, since there's no cyclic dependencies.

The Cosmopolitan Library exports only the most stable canonical system calls for all supported operating systems, regardless of which platform is used for compilation. We polyfill many of the APIs, e.g. read(), write() so they work consistently everywhere while other apis, e.g. CreateWindowEx(), might only work on one platform, in which case they become no-op functions on others.

Cosmopolitan polyfill wrappers will usually use the dollar sign naming convention, so they may be bypassed when necessary. This same convention is used when multiple implementations of string library and other performance-critical function are provided to allow Cosmopolitan to go fast on both old and newer computers.

We take an approach to configuration that relies heavily on the compiler's dead code elimination pass (libc/dce.h). Most of the code is written so that, for example, folks not wanting support for OpenBSD can flip a bit in SUPPORT_VECTOR and that code will be omitted from the build. The same is true for builds that are tuned using -march=native which effectively asks the library to not include runtime support hooks for x86 processors older than what you use.

Please note that, unlike Cygwin or MinGW, Cosmopolitan does not achieve broad support by bolting on a POSIX emulation layer. We do nothing more than (in most cases) stateless API translations that get you 90% of the way there in a fast lightweight manner. We therefore can't address some of the subtle differences, such as the nuances of absolute paths on Windows. Our approach could be compared to something more along the lines of, "the Russians just used a pencil to write in space", versus spending millions researching a pen like NASA.