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On interpreters...

Started by Khaos Jan 19, 2003 at 11:59 AM 1 replies 250+ views

Original Post

Jan 19, 2003 at 11:59 AM

Originally, I had intentions to build a compiler for a custom language of mine. I wanted the compiler to turn my source into Intel-32 bit assembly language. Then, combined with my compiler would be NASM, the free and excellent assembler that is often used. The assembly source would then be assembled by NASM and turned into an executable. After much thinking I realized I felt like that would be incomplete, since I was using NASM, and not my own assembler. So, I thought about the possibility of creating an assembler and linker module along with my compiler. Mind you this language was simple and not very robust, so it wasn''t a huge, complex language or anything; so I thought it would be possible. However, I figured an assembler would be very hard since I''d need lots of documentation on the binary codes for different assembly commands and combinations. Thus, it would easily get confusing and difficult. Now lately I''ve thought about just making an interpreter, similar to the old BASIC or Python of today. I have questions though. * What is the basic theory of an interpreter? a) Essentially, how do they work? b) Is any of the code translated into assembly? c) Does the interpreter rely on the library commands of the language that is building the interpreter? In other words, if I have a "print" command in my language, is that really just using "cout" in C++ behind the scenes? I hope you understand what I mean. I''m not sure how they work, so a brief explaination would help a lot. I''m not sure if it''s really just an interface layer between my language and the build language, or a virtual machine kind of thing, I really have no idea. I just want the concepts behind the old BASIC or Python. Thanks a lot for any help!

MDI

115

MDI

Jan 19, 2003 at 12:22 PM

Your interpreter reads the source file, and carries out actions that are specified in the source file. There is no conversion from HLL to assembly, or to any other language, it is all carried out in the interpreter itself.

Think of what a batch file is in Windows, and you kind of get the idea.

Extrarius

234

Extrarius

Jan 19, 2003 at 12:50 PM

Some interpreters (like java) do compile to a lower level language, but not to assembly. They take a high-level command and convert it to some bytes the program can easily read, like if you have "X=5+A" it would generate maybe
PUSH 5
PUSH A
ADD
POP X
which is the code for a simple stack machine. Stack machines work by putting things on a stack (list) and then each operator (like 'add') takes however many things it needs off and does something (add in this case) and puts the answer back on the stack. The command 'pop' is used to take a value off of the stack and then store it somewhere.

In order to convert something high level into the virtual assembly, you need to build a parse tree (I think thats the name anyways). For example, if you have the code "x = GetPlayerSpeed(player1)*3+5-GetPlayerSpeed(player2)/10" the parse tree would look something like:

If you recursively navigate the tree, you can generate the instructions, like
push player1
call GetPlayerSpeed
push 3
multiply
push 5
add
push player2
call GetPlayerSpeed
push 10
divide
subtract
pop x

And you could convert each one to a few bytes that your program could read in and easily 'execute' to get the desired result. Since its in a really simple form, its a lot faster for the computer to parse it (but you need a compiler or something to convert it to the list of simple instructions. you could do that during load time or make it so your script editor does it every time you save or something like that)

Any 'library' functions would be special cases, and the program would basically map them to the appropriate c++ command. Often, there will be c/c++ functions in between that take commands from the interpreter and use the information they get to properly call a c/c++ function to do something. Those functions in the middle are often called bindings.

There are several tutorials on gamedev about creating scripting languages.
http://gamedev.net/reference/features.asp
http://gamedev.net/reference/

[edited by - Extrarius on January 19, 2003 2:00:54 PM]

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