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https://github.com/l1mey112/stas
A stack based compiled systems programming language.
https://github.com/l1mey112/stas
assembly compiler fasm forth freebsd linux nasm programming-language stackbased stas vlang x86-64
Last synced: 28 days ago
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A stack based compiled systems programming language.
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/l1mey112/stas
- Owner: l1mey112
- License: gpl-3.0
- Created: 2022-07-15T19:18:23.000Z (over 2 years ago)
- Default Branch: master
- Last Pushed: 2023-05-22T02:28:15.000Z (over 1 year ago)
- Last Synced: 2023-05-22T03:24:48.942Z (over 1 year ago)
- Topics: assembly, compiler, fasm, forth, freebsd, linux, nasm, programming-language, stackbased, stas, vlang, x86-64
- Language: GLSL
- Homepage:
- Size: 4.24 MB
- Stars: 40
- Watchers: 3
- Forks: 2
- Open Issues: 0
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- License: LICENSE
Awesome Lists containing this project
README
# `stas - st(ack) as(sembler)`
A stack based compiled systems programming language.
```
include
fn main {
'Hello world!\n' puts
}
```
Loosely inspired by FORTH with a modern syntax, stas is a general purpose low level stack based systems programming language. With syntax designed to be short and consise, programs written in stas take a concatenative form. A form where functions and operations mutate the stack in a pipeline where each output is anothers input.
The stas programming language compiler supports x86_64 systems using the Linux and FreeBSD kernels and can cross compile to both with ease. Unencumbered by a C library, stas utilises OS specific native system calls to interact with the system. The full POSIX API and it's definitions are avaliable in the standard library.
This is my first ever programming language and compiler, the initial journey with all of the guesswork has been documented on my blog at [`tags/stas`](https://blog.l-m.dev/tags/stas/), these show the small steps taken to achieve initial V version of the compiler. The V source code of the bootstrap compiler is in [a-different-branch](https://github.com/l1mey112/stas/tree/0.1.0-v-compiler).
## release changelogs
A release changelog is a complete post outlining all additional features added between releases, and if you're lucky, how they are implemented.
- [stas `0.1.1` Changelog](https://blog.l-m.dev/posts/release-stas-0.1.1/) - [Github Release](https://github.com/l1mey112/stas/releases/tag/0.1.1)
- [stas `0.1.2` Changelog](https://blog.l-m.dev/posts/release-stas-0.1.2/) - [Github Release](https://github.com/l1mey112/stas/releases/tag/0.1.2)
- [stas `0.1.3` Changelog](https://blog.l-m.dev/posts/release-stas-0.1.3/) - [Github Release](https://github.com/l1mey112/stas/releases/tag/0.1.3)
- [stas `0.2.0` Changelog](https://blog.l-m.dev/posts/release-stas-0.2.0/) - [Github Release](https://github.com/l1mey112/stas/releases/tag/0.2.0)
## programming in stas
Guides created by myself.
- [Intro To The stas Programming Language - Core Features](https://blog.l-m.dev/posts/intro-to-stas-1/)
- [Intro To The stas Programming Language - Variables And Memory](https://blog.l-m.dev/posts/intro-to-stas-2/)
As you know, concatenative stack based programming. Think forth. Gloss over these sources.
- [Starting FORTH Part 1 - Forth Inc](https://www.forth.com/starting-forth/1-forth-stacks-dictionary/)
- [Stack-oriented programming - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack-oriented_programming)
- [Concatenative language wiki](https://concatenative.org/wiki/view/Front%20Page)
- [Concatenative programming language - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concatenative_programming_language)
- [Reverse Polish notation - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Polish_notation)
Comments are denoted with semicolons. Checkout the `files/` directory for examples, it contains implementations of rule 110, rule 90 and rule 30, among others and growing.
## bootstrapping stas
[The-stas-compiler-is-written-in-stas.](./stas.stas) To avoid the chicken or the egg scenario, precompiled assembly files reside in the [bootstrap/](bootstrap/) directory.
Use FASM, the [flat-assembler](https://flatassembler.net/), to compile the binaries.
```sh
$ fasm -m 1048576 bootstrap/x86-64_linux.fasm.asm stas
$ doas|sudo ./stas symlink
$ stas -h
....
```
```
$ ./stas
stas 0.2.0 Copyright (C) 2022 l-m.dev
USAGE: ./stas [OPTIONS] [FILE]
-o Specify '-o -' to dump assembly to stdout
-g Debug info. Most effective with the `nasm` backend
-b Assemblers `nasm` or `fasm` as compiler backend
-c Create object file for linking, will not call `ld`
-r Execute file after compiling. Arguments after this
switch will ignored and passed to the program
-v Activate verbose mode
-os `linux` | `freebsd`
-dump-tok Dump token information after scanning stage
-dump-ir Dump intermediate representation after parsing stage
-unsafe Currently only strips assertions
-comptime-depth Adjust compile time recursion depth for evaluating
comptime functions. Default: 12
-trace-calls Compiled executable will have function calls traced
at runtime. Will not trace inlined calls
-h, --help Show this message
SUBCOMMANDS
./stas symlink Will create a symbolic link to the stas compiler
inside `/usr/local/bin/stas`
```
## spec
It generates optimised x86-64 assembly for systems using the Linux kernel. It interfaces with the operating system kernel through syscalls and not through libc. The compiler only emits statically linked binaries for now. This means limited portability among other operating systems and architectures.
The stas compiler generates decently optimised assembly by converting stack based operations to ones that work register to register. It does this through the [register-allocator](./src/x86.stas) present in the compiler.
A dead code elimination pass takes place between the parser and code generation passes. Here, it is also determined which functions will be automatically inlined. Inlining a function removes the overhead of switching between the return stack and the data stack during a function call. The DCE pass also handles optimising tail recursion calls.
```
(text) | (tokens) (IR) (assembly) | (ELF/assembly)
| |
| /-- parser --\ /--- codegen ----\ |
input.stas ->- scanning - | | - | | ->- backend
| \-- checker --/ \- optimisation -/ |
```
## IDE support
Currently, only a [Visual Studio Code extension](https://github.com/l1mey112/stas-vscode) exists supporting syntax highlighting. Freely avaliable in the vscodium extension store, download a copy from [open-vsx](https://open-vsx.org/extension/l-m/stas-vscode).