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=head1 NAME
C::TinyCompiler - Full C JIT compiling using the Tiny C Compiler
These are Perl bindings to the Tiny C Compiler (TCC). TCC is a very fast, very 
small, and nearly compliant C-99 compiler. Some benchmarks claim that TCC
compiles 7x faster than GCC. TCC does not apply the same sorts of optimizations
as GCC, mind you, but it still compiles to machine code. Another important
feature of TCC is that it can compile a string of C code to machine code
without writing to file. In other words, it can be used as a Just In Time
C compiler!
If you do not yet see my point, then consider this: Perl has excellent string
manipulation facilities. By combining Perl's ability to manipulate strings and
TCC's ability to quickly compile C code, we have an easy, fast way to
dynamically generate machine code. Perl's bytecode is fast, of course, but for
certain numerical work, this can lead to operations that are orders of magnitude
faster.
(Though, admitedly, I don't yet have the benchmarks to prove my point.)
=head1 INSTALLATION
This module depends on L<Alien::TinyCC>, so you must install that first with
something like:
 cpan Alien::TinyCC
 cpanm Alien::TinyCC
Once you have those installed, simply download the contents of this
distribution from the Github repo (L<http://github.com/run4flat/perl-TCC>)
or download and unpack the latest tarball from the Download link on the
left of the distributions page at
L<http://https://metacpan.org/module/C::TinyCompiler>. Once you have the
code, run:
        perl Build.PL
        ./Build
        ./Build test
        ./Build install
=head1 DEVELOPMENT
Current development for C::TinyCompiler is hosted on github. To get the latest 
work, just clone the repo:
 git clone https://github.com/run4flat/perl-TCC.git
Since I have a hard time keeping the F<Changes> file up-to-date, I wrote a git 
pre-commit hook that checks that I updated the Changes file and double-checks 
with me in case I did not. This hook is included in the repo. To enable it in 
your clone, just copy the hook to your F<.git/hooks/> directory like so:
 # Optional; helps keep the Changes file up-to-date
 cp git-pre-commit-hook.pl .git/hooks/pre-commit    # Unixen
 copy git-pre-commit-hook.pl .git/hooks/pre-commit  # Windows
=head1 SUPPORT AND DOCUMENTATION
After installing, you can find documentation for this module with the
perldoc command.
    perldoc C::TinyCompiler
You can also look for information at:
=over 4
=item * The Github issue tracker (report bugs here)
L<http://github.com/run4flat/perl-TCC/issues>
=item * AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation
L<http://annocpan.org/dist/C-TinyCompiler>
=item * CPAN Ratings
L<http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/C-TinyCompiler>
=item * Search CPAN
L<http://p3rl.org/C::TinyCompiler>
L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/C-TinyCompiler/>
=back
=head1 AUTHOR
Written by David Mertens, C<< <dcmertens.perl at gmail.com> >>
=head1 LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT
Portions of this code are copyright 2011-2013 Northwestern University.
Portions of this code are copyright 2013 Dickinson College.
Documentation copyright 2011-2013 David Mertens.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of either: the GNU General Public License as published
by the Free Software Foundation; or the Artistic License.
See http://dev.perl.org/licenses/ for more information.