Installing The /opt/fil Distribution

My favorite way to demonstrate Fil-C is using the /opt/fil binary distribution, since it:

• Installs everything into /opt/fil for peaceful coexistence with your usual Linux userland.
• Puts the Fil-C compiler in /opt/fil/bin/filcc and /opt/fil/bin/fil++.
• Includes useful programs compiled with Fil-C, like memory safe OpenSSH client and server.

Fil-C currently only supports Linux/X86_64.

Download And Install

You can download binary releases from the Fil-C GitHub. The /opt/fil binary releases are named optfil-0.673-linux-x86_64.tar.xz.

Once you download a release and unpack it, simply run:

sudo ./setup.sh

Assuming the script finds no issues, it will prompt you if you really want to unpack the /opt/fil. Type YES (in all caps).

This style of Fil-C installation places all Fil-C headers, libraries, and tools in the /opt/fil slice. The compiler automatically knows how to find those headers and libraries and will link programs in such a way that they will look for their dependent shared libraries there.

Try It Out

First, add /opt/fil/bin to your $PATH:

export PATH=/opt/fil/bin:$PATH

Then assuming you have this simple C program called hello.c:

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    printf("Hello from Fil-C!\n");
    return 0;
}

You can compile it using the Fil-C compiler like so:

filcc -O2 -g -o hello hello.c

Note that this is also using Fil-C since filcc is invoking a memory-safe build of the GNU linker (/opt/fil/bin/ld).

Similarly C++ just works:

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main() {
    cout << "Hello!" << endl;
    return 0;
}

This builds with clang++ like so:

fil++ -O2 -g -o hello hello.cpp

The /opt/fil distribution also includes useful programs, like ssh, mg, and bash. You can even launch a memory-safe OpenSSH server using /opt/fil/sbin/sshd!