PZAB Interpreter -Version 0.1a
================
Interpreter for the PZAB programming language written in C.
Designed to be fast and portable.
Copyright (C) 2015 Zac Herd <zacjherd@gmail.com>
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.
CONTENTS
========
1. What is PZAB?
2. The PZAB Instruction Set
3. Building/Using the Interpreter
4. Getting Involved
1. What is PZAB?
================
Overview:
---------
PZAB is an esoteric programming language designed by Zac Herd in 2013.
It forces the programmer to think in terms of bits rather than integral
values (or any other data types for that matter).
The programmer manipulates a bounded-storage machine with 256 bytes of memory,
and 5 registers of varying sizes by using single ASCII characters as
instructions to the interpreter.
The PZAB Machine Architecture:
------------------------------
As previously stated, the PZAB machine is a bounded-storage machine that has
256 bytes of memory available.
There are 5 registers: P0, P1, Z, A, and B.
P0 is 8 bits in size and points to a location in the machine's memory.
If P0 had the value of 0x16, for example, we would be referencing memory cell
0x16.
P1 is 3 bits in size and references a bit in the memory cell pointed to by P0.
If P0 had the value 0x16, and P1 had the value 0x3, we would be referencing
bit 0x3 of memory cell 0x16.
Z is 1 bit in size. It is used as an accumulator for the logical operations
the PZAB interpreter can perform. Z cannot be assigned to directly; only through
such operations can it be assigned a value.
Z can however, write values to bits in memory pointed to by P0 and P1, as well
as to the A and B registers.
A and B are both 1 bit in size. They can be assigned values from memory, or from
the Z register. Both registers are used in logical operations, the results of
which are then stored in Z. A and B cannot write values to memory.
All memory and registers are initialised to 0x00;
2. The PZAB Instruction Set
===========================
Overview:
---------
PZAB instructions are single ASCII characters. Any 'non-PZAB' characters found
in scripts are ignored by the interpreter.
When writing a PZAB script file, the preferred extension is .pzab
Instructions:
------------
+ - Increment P0
- - Decrement P0
< - Increment P1
> - Decrement P1
A - Assign bit P1 of cell P0 to A
B - Assign bit P1 of cell P0 to B
a - Assign Z to A
b - Assign Z to B
Z - Assign Z to bit P1 of cell P0
! - Perform logic NOT on Z
& - Perform logic AND on A and B, result stored in Z
| - Perform logic OR on A and B, result stored in Z
_ - Perform logic XOR on A and B, result stored in Z
. - Get integer input and store in cell P0
, - Get ASCII character input and store in cell P0
: - Output cell P0 as integer
; - Output cell P0 as ASCII character
? - Only executes code up to matching '~' if Z is 0
~ - See '~'
1-9 - Executes code up to matching '0' this many times (1 loops infinitely)
0 - See '1-9'
3. Building/Using the PZAB Interpreter
======================================
General Build Information:
--------------------------
The Makefile for the PZAB interpreter is arranged so that variables which will
likely be modified are near the top.
By default, the -g compiler option is set (see CFLAGS). This is intended for
a debug build, and to get a faster execution time, it is recommended that you
change this to -O3
The PZAB interpreter uses no external libraries, so the only dependencies are
the standard C libraries.
Targets are:
all - default 'make' target, builds pzab
install - installs pzab to selected folder (default=/usr/local/bin)
uninstall - removes pzab from selected folder
clean - removes all compiled binary files in bin and obj
Building on Linux:
------------------
The Makefile is already configured to compile using gcc.
Just run 'make' in the root pzab directory.
Building on Windows:
--------------------
Windows users will likely need to change several settings in the Makefile to
build:
The target should have an .exe extension appended in order to execute.
The compiler must be changed accordingly (likely 'mingw-gcc' or 'msvc').
The install dir must be changed to a valid windows folder.
After changing makefile settings according to your system, use your C compiler
to build (if you do not have one, I recommend either MinGW or Cygwin).
Troubleshooting:
----------------
If after following the instructions above, and checking your compiler's manual,
you are still having problems building the PZAB interpreter, feel free to
contact me using zacjherd@gmail.com and I will do my best to help.
Remember, Google is your friend. ;)
Running the Interpreter:
------------------------
Once built, running the interpreter is as simple as:
$'pzab script.pzab'
Where pzab is the built executable, and script.pzab is the script you want the
interpreter to run.
4. Getting Involved
===================
If you have any experience with C programming, and want to add new features or
improve existing code, feel free to clone this repo and make your changes; I
will respond to pull requests as quickly as I can.
You may also improve the wiki at:
https://esolangs.org/wiki/PZAB