Sign In Start Free Trial
Account

Add to playlist

Create a Playlist

Modal Close icon
You need to login to use this feature.
  • Book Overview & Buying Building Programming Language Interpreters
  • Table Of Contents Toc
Building Programming Language Interpreters

Building Programming Language Interpreters

By : Daniel Ruoso
close
close
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)
close
close
1
Modeling the Programming Language Runtime Environment
7
Modeling the Programming Language Syntax
12
Implementing the Interpreter Runtime
16
Interpreting Source Code
24
Index

Evaluating different lexer libraries

The most traditional implementation of a lexer is, without a doubt, Flex (https://github.com/westes/flex). It is used by many programming languages, or at least it’s the starting point for many of them. It works with a code generator, which interleaves the code required to match the regular expressions with the actions that need to be executed.

Its main advantage is its ubiquity: there’s probably not an operating system in which you can’t get Flex to work, and it has been extensively optimized and reviewed over the years. Its main disadvantage is the contrived rules of its code generator, where you’re expected to write C code interleaved with the lexer rules that Flex parses, which then get converted into a final C file.

re2c (https://re2c.org/) and RE/flex (https://github.com/Genivia/RE-flex) are lexers that take a similar approach to Flex, in the sense that you have a separate programming language interleaved...

CONTINUE READING
83
Tech Concepts
36
Programming languages
73
Tech Tools
Icon Unlimited access to the largest independent learning library in tech of over 8,000 expert-authored tech books and videos.
Icon Innovative learning tools, including AI book assistants, code context explainers, and text-to-speech.
Icon 50+ new titles added per month and exclusive early access to books as they are being written.
Building Programming Language Interpreters
notes
bookmark Notes and Bookmarks search Search in title playlist Add to playlist download Download options font-size Font size

Change the font size

margin-width Margin width

Change margin width

day-mode Day/Sepia/Night Modes

Change background colour

Close icon Search
Country selected

Close icon Your notes and bookmarks

Confirmation

Modal Close icon
claim successful

Buy this book with your credits?

Modal Close icon
Are you sure you want to buy this book with one of your credits?
Close
YES, BUY

Submit Your Feedback

Modal Close icon
Modal Close icon
Modal Close icon