C3 Language

C3 is a C-like language trying to be "an incremental improvement over C" rather than a whole new language. C3 owes a lot to the ideas of the C2 language: to iterate on top of C without trying to be a whole new language.

C3 tries to be an alternative in the the C/C++ niche: fast and close to the metal.

Design Principles

• Procedural "get things done"-type of language.
• Try to stay close to C - only change where truly needed.
• Flawless C integration.
• Learning C3 should be easy for a C programmer.
• Dare violating the "close to metal" principle if the value is great.
• Data is inert.
• Avoid "big ideas".
• Avoid the kitchen sink language trap.

Current status

Most work is still being done in the design draft here: https://c3lang.github.io/c3docs/. If you have suggestions, send a mail to christoffer@aegik.com, file an issue or discuss C3 on the r/ProgrammingLanguages Discord server: https://discord.gg/cfu4wdk

There are some small work being done on the parser here, but most of the structure is still missing:

What's missing in the parser

• asm sections.
• Macro parameter lists to imports.
• auxiliary data for enums.

What's missing in the semantic analyser

• No handling imports.
• Function signatures incomplete.
• Function typedef not done.
• asm not done.
• catch, throws and try statements.
• generic not analysed.
• attribute not analysed.
• $switch and $for not handled.
• Enums not correctly handled.
• Errors not correctly handles.
• Type resolution not complete for all types.
• type not handled.
• ?: not handled.
• Identifier analysis incomplete.
• Macro call not handled completely.
• Function calls not handled completely.
• Struct initializers not complete.
• No analysis of [] nor .someMember.
• Missing analysis of assign expressions.
• Not all casts implemented.
• Varargs.

What's missing overall

• Exactly how the module system should work together with the import is still under discussion.
• Exactly how the library imports should work is not 100% decided.
• The compiler currently only works in single file mode.
• Integration with C.

What's working?

• The compiler can compile simple programs, but integration with C is mostly missing, which means that little can be displayed outwards.
• Lexing and parsing works (except for the exceptions noted above).

If you wish to contribute with ideas, please file issues on the c3docs: https://github.com/c3lang/c3docs instead of the compiler.