About

The GNU/Liberty Basic Compiler Collection (GLBCC) is a suite of tools designed to allow Windows and Linux users to compile Liberty Basic code to a standalone application. GLBCC uses entirely independent and entirely free libraries to generate super small and super fast executables that have no external dependency. The project originally started as a single utility to convert Liberty Basic code to C but quickly became an integrated compiler system.

The GLBCC suite is composed entirely of Free Software and can be downloaded at the download page . There is a great deal of documentation available on installing, using, and contributing to GLBCC at the documentation page .  If you have a question about installing or using GLBCC, please consult the appropriate Frequently Asked Question file on the documentation page.  If that does not answer your question, you can either post a message to the help forum at the SourceForge page, or if your problem is of a technical nature, you can post to the GLBCC mailing list. Otherwise, you can contact the current maintainer of GLBCC Anthony Liguori .

Why

There has for many years been a strong need for a real compiler for Liberty Basic.  Liberty Basic programs traditionally were quite slow and distribution required distributing your code in a tokenized format along with a run time engine, and a bunch of dll's that all together topped 1.5MB.  Liberty Basic also does not exist in any form on Linux.  The one thing Linux has always seemed to lack, was a simple language for creating GUIs.

Most importantly, this project is a prime example of the why not philosphy.  It's a pretty cool concept and it is pretty fun to work on, so why not do it.

How

Normally, a compiler consists of a pre-processor, a language compiler that generates assembly code, an assembler that generates object files, and a linker that actually generates an executable.  GLBCC works by adding another tool that allows Liberty Basic code to be compiled by GCC.  This tool is called LBPP.  There is also a runtime library that provides all the necessary run time functionality.   This library is called libLB.  Another tool by the name of GLBCC (GNU/Liberty Basic Common Compiler) is included that acts as a front end to allow for a user friendly development environment.

Who

This project is currently being maintained by Anthony Liguori .  For a complete list of all contributors, see the AUTHORS file in the top level of the GLBCC distribution.


This site and project is generiously hosted by SourceForge free of charge.

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