Add C as a target architecture

[The-Jon]

I would appreciate it if you could add a "C" Target. I know it shouldn't be used because of the optimization and information lost. But just as an option to compile Zig for platforms/architectures which aren't supported by clang.

[emekoi]

by "c target" do you mean a c backend so that zig can transpile to c?

[The-Jon]

Yes, to support more architectures.

[jayschwa]

Interesting idea. Could a C target theoretically eliminate the need for the stage 1 compiler to be a separate implementation?

[andrewrk]

No because the point of bootstrapping is to go from source to generated code. Even if we committed the output of compilation (even if it is C code) to the repository, it would not make it source code, it would still be generated code.

It could potentially be done once, and then it would have to "fork" off, and get de-obfuscated and commented, and start being maintained separately.

[uael]

Related one #3772.
Really cool to see this feature accepted, I'm still stuck to C cause of custom architectures, this will be a big step forward!

[andrewrk]

Duplicated of already planned #3772