---
name: "nbfc"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "nbfc"
version: "0.1-2"
release: "Debian 3.0 (Woody)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/nbfc"
---

# nbfc(1)

## NAME

nbfc -- The new brainfuck compiler

## SYNOPSIS

*nbfc* \[options\] file

## DESCRIPTION

**nbfc** is a new, completely portable compiler for the brainfuck programming language. It will generate and compile C code or as an option a Java application.

**nbfc** is quite different from the original brainfuck compiler by the language's inventor Urban Mueller: \

- \- It's portable. The original bfc was for the Amiga only. **nbfc** should run on any unix-like system.

  - \- It uses standard tools for its implementation and doesn't try to obfuscate the code.

  - \- It can compile to C and supports the ''write once, run anywhere'' concept with its capability to generate Java applications.

  ## OPTIONS

- **-o** file

  Generate an executable by the name of *file*. If the **-j** switch is given, this will be the name of the Java Class generated.\

- **-k**

  Keep generated intermediate code (C or Java). The default is to delete the `.c` or `.java` file that was generated by the compiler and just keep the executable or the `.class` file, respectively.\

- **-j**

  Generate and compile a Java class instead of a C executable. The default is to use C as an intermediate language. \

- **-v**

  Be verbose. By invoking this switch, **nbfc** will print out lots of messages about the state of compilation.\

- **-g**

  Don't compile, just generate intermediate file (C or Java). This can be used for debugging. This also tells the compiler no to delete the generated intermediate file, as if the **-k** option was given.\

- **-c**

  Display the copying license. The license is BSD-style and very liberal.\

- **-h**

  Display a short help screen.

## INVOCATION

When called without any options, **nbfc** will translate the brainfuck file  given on the command line to C and call a C compiler to produce an executable.

The executable will have the name `bf.out` (this can be changed with the **-o** option). The intermediate C file always has the name `bf.out.c` and will be deleted if the **-k** option is not present.

When using Java as the intermediate language, the default name for the application is `bf.out.class`, the default name for the Java file is `bf.out.java`. Both the class name and the intermediate Java code file name can be changed with the **-o** option.

## THE LANGUAGE

brainfuck is a simple enough language to include the entire official language describtion in this man page. The following is from the original brainfuck  distribution by Urban Mueller `<umueller@amiga.physik.unizh.ch`\>, who also  invented the language:

''The language *brainfuck* knows the following commands:

```
 Cmd  Effect                                 Equivalent in C
 ---  ------                                 ---------------
 +    Increases element under pointer        array[p]++;
 -    Decrases element under pointer         array[p]--;
 >    Increases pointer                      p++;
 <    Decreases pointer                      p--;
 [    Starts loop, counter under pointer     while(array[p]) {
 ]    Indicates end of loop                  }
 .    Outputs ASCII code under pointer       putchar(array[p]);
 ,    Reads char and stores ASCII under ptr  array[p]=getchar();
```

All other characters are ignored. The 30000 array elements and p are being initialized to zero at the beginning.  Now while this seems to be a pretty useless language, it can be proven that it can compute every solvable mathematical problem (if we ignore the array size limit and the executable size limit).''

## BUGS

There is no checking for balanced brackets; if these are not balanced, strange things may happen. The compiler doesn´t optimize. There really should be a backend that generates assembly language code (at least for Intel and PowerPC machines) instead of  only C and Java.

## AUTHOR

Jens Ohlig \<jo@koeln.ccc.de\>