Picol: A Minimal Tcl Interpreter in 500 Lines of C Code
By
tosh
Slow-proofed and worth the wait. Worth its weight in flour.
Summary
Picol is a minimal Tcl interpreter written in just 500 lines of C code, originally released in 2007 and recently updated to version 2 in February 2026. The creator, antirez, has archived the project on GitHub as a programming example, noting that the code serves as a good demonstration of C programming techniques. The repository includes both the original version and the updated version 2, which contains significant improvements while maintaining the core simplicity of the interpreter.
Key quotes
· 5 pulledPicol is a Tcl-alike interpreter in 500 lines of code (true for the original version 1, a bit more for version 2)
I initially released 15th of March 2007
Recently I looked at the source code and realized this was a better C programming example than what I recalled
I'm putting this on GitHub to archive it, together with the main points of the original article
Update: in February 2026 the interpreter was updated with a few significant changes, I call this version Picol 2
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