How can a C compiler be written in C? [duplicate]

Answer 1

Usually, a first compiler is written in another language (directly in PDP11 assembler in this case, or in C for most of the "modern" languages). Then, this first compiler is used to program a compiler written in the language itself.

You can read this page about the history of the C language. You will see that it is also strongly linked to the UNIX system.

Answer 2

It's perfectly ordinary for a compiler to be written in the language it compiles. One way to achieve this would be to write a complete compiler for language L in some other language, and then to write a new compiler for L in L. A more interesting approach would be to write a minimal compiler for a subset of L in some other language, and then use this minimal subset to improve the compiler, making it less minimal increasing the available subset of L. In this way, a complete compiler can be built.

Answer 3

It's called Bootstrapping, quoting from Wikipedia:

If one needs a compiler for language X to obtain a compiler for language X (which is written in language X), how did the first compiler get written? Possible methods to solving this chicken or the egg problem include:

1. Implementing an interpreter or compiler for language X in language Y. Niklaus Wirth reported that he wrote the first Pascal compiler in Fortran.
2. Another interpreter or compiler for X has already been written in another language Y; this is how Scheme is often bootstrapped.
3. Earlier versions of the compiler were written in a subset of X for which there existed some other compiler; this is how some supersets of Java, Haskell, and the initial Free Pascal compiler are bootstrapped.
4. The compiler for X is cross compiled from another architecture where there exists a compiler for X; this is how compilers for C are usually ported to other platforms. Also this is the method used for Free Pascal after the initial bootstrap.
5. Writing the compiler in X; then hand-compiling it from source (most likely in a non-optimized way) and running that on the code to get an optimized compiler. Donald Knuth used this for his WEB literate programming system.

And if you are interested, here is Dennis Richie's first C compiler source.

Answer 4

See the Chicken and Egg section of the Wikipedia page:

If one needs a compiler for language X to obtain a compiler for language X (which is written in language X), how did the first compiler get written? Possible methods to solving this chicken or the egg problem include:

• Implementing an interpreter or compiler for language X in language Y. Niklaus Wirth reported that he wrote the first Pascal compiler in Fortran.
• Another interpreter or compiler for X has already been written in another language Y; this is how Scheme is often bootstrapped.
• Earlier versions of the compiler were written in a subset of X for which there existed some other compiler; this is how some supersets of Java, Haskell, and the initial Free Pascal compiler are bootstrapped.
• The compiler for X is cross compiled from another architecture where there exists a compiler for X; this is how compilers for C are usually ported to other platforms. Also this is the method used for Free Pascal after the initial bootstrap.
• Writing the compiler in X; then hand-compiling it from source (most likely in a non-optimized way) and running that on the code to get an optimized compiler. Donald Knuth used this for his WEB literate programming system.