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

Knowing when a new control structure is needed

If you google the definition of a control structure, it will say something like “control structures determine the order in which one or more chunks of code execute.” This definition is fine for traditional mainstream languages. It focuses on control flow, and it addresses two kinds of control structures: choosing which (or whether) to execute and code (loops) that can repeat under some conditions. The if statements and while loops that we implemented for Jzero earlier in this book are good examples.

Higher-level languages tend to have a more nuanced view of control structures. For example, in a language with built-in backtracking, the order in which chunks of code may execute becomes more complicated. This book will paraphrase Ralph Griswold’s definition of a control structure in the Icon programming language: a control structure is an expression containing two or more subexpressions in which one subexpression...