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Building Programming Language Interpreters

Building Programming Language Interpreters

By : Daniel Ruoso
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Building Programming Language Interpreters

Building Programming Language Interpreters

By: Daniel Ruoso

Overview of this book

Designing a custom programming language can be the most effective way to solve certain types of problems—especially when precision, safety, or domain-specific expressiveness matters. This book guides you through the full process of designing and implementing your own programming language and interpreter, from language design to execution, using modern C++. You’ll start by exploring when and why building a domain-specific language is worth it, and how to design one to fit a specific problem domain. Along the way, you’ll examine real-world interpreter architectures and see how their design decisions affect language behavior, capabilities, and runtime trade-offs. The book then walks through the entire process of interpreter implementation: defining syntax, building a lexer and parser, designing an abstract syntax tree, generating executable instructions, and implementing a runtime. All examples are in modern C++, with a focus on clean architecture and real-world usability. By the end, you’ll have a fully working interpreter for a domain-specific language designed to handle network protocols—plus the knowledge and tools to design your own programming language from scratch. *Email sign-up and proof of purchase required
Table of Contents (25 chapters)
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1
Modeling the Programming Language Runtime Environment
7
Modeling the Programming Language Syntax
12
Implementing the Interpreter Runtime
16
Interpreting Source Code
24
Index

Initialization and Entry Point

Up to this point, I have been working on design considerations for the interpreter and the programming language. Now, it is time to start on the actual code for the interpreter. In this chapter, I will work through the outermost layer of the interpreter, covering the following:

  • The overall layout of the project
  • The state of the interpreter that needs to be maintained throughout the execution
  • How to make sure the interpreter can be easily embedded into existing systems
  • Mechanisms to make the interpreter code more adaptable to growing needs
  • How the interpreter will interact with I/O operations

By the end of this chapter, you will have a practical framework for thinking about the implementation of your own interpreter while being able to reference real working code.

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Tech Concepts
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Programming languages
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Building Programming Language Interpreters
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