About This Project

I wanted to see if I could create a programming language. It worked!

This project can be divided into two parts:

The runtime, a simple stack machine that runs custom bytecode.
The compiler, that can compile my custom language's source code into bytecode for the runtime.

Example Code

fib(n)
    return = 1
    if >(n, 2)
        return = add(fib(add(n, -1)), fib(add(n, -2)))

This computes the n-th Fibonacci number.

Project Setup

You need the following tools:

npm
Deno

After checking out the git repository, run npm install to install the dependencies.

How to Compile and Execute Code

deno run --allow-read run.ts <filename> [<function name> [program arguments]]

Example:

Save the following in a text file called myprogram.txt:
```
myfunction(a, b, c)
    return = add(a, mul(b, c))
```
Open the console inside the project directory and execute
```
deno run --allow-read run.ts myprogram.txt myfunction 1 2 3
```
This should print 7 to the console. If you stored your file in a diffent location, simply change myprogram.txt to the actual path of your file.

You can also add a main() function to the end of your file:

myfunction(a, b, c)
    return = add(a, mul(b, c))

main()
    return = myfunction(1, 2, 3)

The runtime looks for a "main" function by default. Therefore, you can now simply run:

deno run --allow-read run.ts myprogram.txt

To see what the compiler does, add the --debug flag when running your program from the console. This will show you:

debug information while the compiler is compiling your code
the compiler output (bytecode)
debug information while the runtime is executing the bytecode

For the Fibonacci example above, the bytecode will look something like this:

[0]  load 1
[1]  write -1
[2]  read 0
[3]  push
[4]  load 2
[5]  push
[6]  native greater
[7]  jumpIfNot 30
[8]  load 0
[9]  push
[10] read 0
[11] push
[12] load -1
[13] push
[14] native add
[15] push
[16] jumpFunction 0
[17] push
[18] load 0
[19] push
[20] read 0
[21] push
[22] load -2
[23] push
[24] native add
[25] push
[26] jumpFunction 0
[27] push
[28] native add
[29] write -1
[30] pop
[31] pop
[32] return

tom-mohr/compiler

About This Project

Example Code

Project Setup

How to Compile and Execute Code