Assignment 8 Notes

• Function pointers (including as argument and return values)
• Lambdas
• Memoisation (Compile time)

see asm8 test script for examples

About

A compiler developed in OCaml with OCamllex and Menhir for the Compiler Construction module at the University of Birmingham. Intended to mimic a C-like syntax with functional characteristics.

Usage

Compile with make clean with make clean

Run evaluator on a given file with ./some_lang.native [-flags] [filename]

Flags

• -v - Print abstract syntax tree
• -o - Enable optimisations
• -s - Output evaluation statistics
• -i - Interpretation mode
• -c - Code generation mode
• -x86 - x86-64 generation mode (compatibility: OS X 10.11.6)

Tests

Run tests with make tests

Failed test reports can be found in test/test.log

The inputs of tests for assignment X can be viewed in test/asmX

The expected results of tests for assignment X can be viewed in test/asmX/expected

Syntax

Programs consist of a sequence of function definitions.

Function definitions consist of a function name, sequence of zero or more arguments and a sequence of instructions:

functionName(arguments){instructions}

Arguments consist of a list of instructions separated by a comma

Instructions are separated by semicolons as:

instruction
instruction; instruction

Instructions can be in the form of the following expressions:

var varName = 5               //variable declaration
const varName = 5             //constant declaration
varName                       //variable
~x                            //dereference variable

5                              //constant
5 {math operation} x           //mathematical expression
x {bool operation} y           //boolean expression
!(x)                           //boolean negation

someFunctionName(arguments)    //function call
read_int()                     //read int
print(instruction)             //print expression

return instruction             //return

and the following constructs:

while(expression){instruction}                             //while loop
if(expression){instruction}else{instruction}               //if statement
fun var1, var2, ..., varn -> (instruction)                 //lambda function