BBCF was created for Unix-like systems, such as Ubuntu and other Linux distributions. The script bbcf relies on the existence of /bin/sh, so if you are a Windows user, WSL is probably your best option.
To download a release, head to the releases tab and download bbfc, bbcfc, install.sh and README.md from your preferred release. When they have been downloaded into a common location, open a terminal in their parent folder and run chmod +x install.sh && sudo ./install.sh. If you use an operating system that does not use sudo, such as a BSD, you may need to use an alternative command, like doas. If you are unsure of your OS's equivalent, you could alternatively run su then ./install.sh. If you do not wish to install the bbcf script, and only the bbcfc executable, run ./install.sh -s instead.
To build from source, open a terminal and run git clone https://github.com/bradeythedev/bbcf. Now run cd bbcf to enter the repo's directory, and then make to build it. If you do not wish to install BBCF to your $PATH, you are done. However, if you want to be able to use the bbcf or bbcfc commands from anywhere on your system, you will need to run sudo make install. If you do not want to install the bbcf script to your $PATH, and only the bbcfc executable, run sudo make nobbcfinstall instead. If your system does not use sudo, you may need to use an equivalent in its place, or log in as root with su.
If you want to build another version of BBCF, you can use the make clean command in the same directory, and sudo make uninstall or sudo make nobbcfuninstall.
You will notice two executables when you install BBCF, bbcf and bbcfc. bbcf is a shell script (which relies on sh) that provides a wrapper for the actual executable - bbcfc. This wrapper allows you to use a more familiar compiler syntax: bbcf FILENAME. You can use BBCF without this script (by using the bbcfc command directly), and you can choose to not install bbcf at all.
The bbcfc executable is the actual brainfuck compiler, but interfacing with it requires your brainfuck code to be piped into it, and it prints the resulting C code to the standard output. This can be achieved in a shell by running cat FILENAME | bbcfc > OUTPUT.c. The bbcf script runs exactly that command, but it also compiles the C code with the cc command.
Brainfuck is an esoteric programming language created in 1993. It is designed to be minimal, and uses only 8 characters to interact with memory.
BBCF allocates a 1024 character array for every brainfuck program, which the program is free to use as it wishes. Each character that represents a brainfuck instruction ('<', '>', '-', '+', '.', ',', '[', ']') has a static definition in the form of a function (with the exception of '[' and ']'). In the outputted C code, the respective functions are defined, and called from the main() function. '[' and ']', however, is simply a while loop, that will continue looping until the value it checks is equivalent to zero.
BBCF is in what is most likely its final form. I have one potential feature set that is yet to be included, but it is unlikely I will continue BBCF's development. BBCF was intended as a simple project that would allow me to learn some C, learn something about compilers, and take a look at brainfuck.
That being said, I will accept pull requests for bug fixes, however, I will most likely NOT accept pull requests for feature updates. If you think BBCF has more potential (for some reason), then feel free to fork it and continue development yourself.
Thanks for visiting the repo - and don't forget to star BBCF because the more stars your repo has, the cooler you are (and I want to look cool obviously)