cbase

A high-performance, modern C project template designed to provide a clean, zero-dependency starting point for professional C development.

This template drags C into the modern era by providing "Quality of Life" features commonly found in languages like Odin, Zig, and Rust such as string slices, exact-width types, and virtual memory arenas without sacrificing the raw speed and simplicity of standard C.

Features

• No Bloat: Zero external dependencies. Everything is built from scratch.
• Virtual Memory Arenas: A professional Arena allocator built directly on top of OS-level virtual memory (VirtualAlloc / mmap). Reserve gigabytes of address space instantly and commit physical RAM only as needed. Say goodbye to malloc, free, and memory leaks.
• Sized Strings (Slices): Fast, allocation-free string manipulation using pointer/length pairs (String8), completely eliminating buffer overflows and strlen overhead.
• Modern Types & Macros: Exact-width integers (u8, i32, usize), type-safe evaluation macros (MIN, MAX, CLAMP), and intrusive linked-list tools.
• Professional Logging: A thread-safe, leveled logger with colored console output and multi-sink (file/callback) support.
• Built-in Testing: A lightweight, Unity-Build based testing harness that compiles and runs in milliseconds.
• Frictionless Build System: A highly tuned CMake configuration that uses CONFIGURE_DEPENDS to automatically detect new .c files without needing manual CMake reloads.

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Directory Structure

.
├── include/            # Public APIs and headers
│   ├── base/           # Core primitives (types, strings, macros, logging)
│   └── memory/         # Allocators (Arena and OS memory wrappers)
├── src/                # Implementation files and Application code
│   ├── base/           # Internal base implementations
│   ├── memory/         # OS-level memory implementations
│   └── main.c          # Application entry point
├── lib/                # (Optional) Drop external libraries here
├── test/               # Custom test harness and unit tests
├── docs/               # Doxygen generated documentation output
├── build/              # All build artifacts and binaries end up here
└── CMakeLists.txt      # Root build configuration

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Getting Started

Clone the Template

Get this template to your local machine:

git clone https://gitlab.com/Alfred-Jijo/cbase.git my_project
cd my_project

Build the Project

This project uses CMake (Minimum v3.13) wrapped in convenient build scripts. You don't need to manually invoke CMake.

• Windows:

  build.bat

• Linux / macOS:

  ./build.sh

(Note: The build scripts automatically handle creating the build/ directory, generating the CMake cache, and compiling the executable.)

Run the Application

The build scripts output the compiled binaries into the build/bin/ directory.

• Windows: build\bin\debug_cbase.exe
• Linux / macOS: ./build/bin/debug_cbase

Run the Tests

To ensure the core systems are working correctly on your specific OS/Architecture, run the included test suite:

• Windows: build\bin\tests_cbase.exe
• Linux / macOS: ./build/bin/tests_cbase

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Roadmap

• Base Primitives (Types, Math Macros, Context Cracking)

• Sized Strings / String Slices

• Logging Subsystem

• Automated Testing Suite

• Allocators
  • OS Virtual Memory Wrapper
  • Arena Allocator
  • Bump Allocator
  • Pool Allocator
• Data Structures and Algorithms
  • Intrusive Linked Lists
  • Array Lists
  • Stacks & Queues
  • Hash Maps

License

See the LICENSE file for details.