Book Image

Build Your Own Programming Language - Second Edition

By : Clinton L. Jeffery
Book Image

Build Your Own Programming Language - Second Edition

By: Clinton L. Jeffery

Overview of this book

There are many reasons to build a programming language: out of necessity, as a learning exercise, or just for fun. Whatever your reasons, this book gives you the tools to succeed. You’ll build the frontend of a compiler for your language and generate a lexical analyzer and parser using Lex and YACC tools. Then you’ll explore a series of syntax tree traversals before looking at code generation for a bytecode virtual machine or native code. In this edition, a new chapter has been added to assist you in comprehending the nuances and distinctions between preprocessors and transpilers. Code examples have been modernized, expanded, and rigorously tested, and all content has undergone thorough refreshing. You’ll learn to implement code generation techniques using practical examples, including the Unicon Preprocessor and transpiling Jzero code to Unicon. You'll move to domain-specific language features and learn to create them as built-in operators and functions. You’ll also cover garbage collection. Dr. Jeffery’s experiences building the Unicon language are used to add context to the concepts, and relevant examples are provided in both Unicon and Java so that you can follow along in your language of choice. By the end of this book, you'll be able to build and deploy your own domain-specific language.
Table of Contents (27 chapters)
1
Section I: Programming Language Frontends
7
Section II: Syntax Tree Traversals
13
Section III: Code Generation and Runtime Systems
22
Section IV: Appendix
23
Answers
24
Other Books You May Enjoy
25
Index

Generating code for control flow

Generating code for control structures such as conditionals and loops is more challenging than code for arithmetic expressions, as shown in the preceding section. Instead of using synthesized attributes in a single bottom-up pass, code for control flow uses label information that must be moved to where it is needed using inherited attributes. This may involve multiple passes through the syntax tree. We will start with the conditional expression logic needed for even the most basic control flow, such as if statements, and then show you how to apply that to loops, followed by the considerations needed for method calls.

Generating label targets for condition expressions

We have already set up for control flow by assigning the first and follow attributes, as described in the Annotating syntax trees with labels for control flow section. Consider what role the first and follow attributes play, starting with the simplest control flow statement, the...