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Project mini-compilerLanguagesExpertBeta

A mini compiler to bytecode

From source code to runnable bytecode. Lexing, AST, semantic analysis, code generation and a VM that runs it.

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Build it in your language

RustC++TypeScript

The tester treats your program as a black box: any language works. These are just the most convenient ones for this project.

Guide language

EnglishEspañol

The stage guides read in this language. Only languages this project is fully translated into show up here; the interface language does not change.

What this project is about

This is the longest challenge in the catalog and the one that brings the most together: your own language, with its compiler and its virtual machine, built end to end.

You'll go from text to tokens, from tokens to a tree, from the tree to a type-checked representation, from there to bytecode and, finally, to a stack machine that executes it. You'll finish running programs written in a language you designed yourself.

Roadmap

16 stages across 4 phases. Every stage comes with its guide and its tests: you move on when they pass.

  1. Phase 15 stages

    The frontend

    Lexer, a parser with precedence, and the language's syntax tree.

    1. 01Tokens
    2. 02Expressions
    3. 03Statements
    4. 04Control flow
    5. 05Functions in the AST
  2. Phase 24 stages

    Understanding the program

    Name resolution, scopes, type checking and useful errors.

    1. 01Symbol table
    2. 02Type checking
    3. 03Flow analysis
    4. 04Useful diagnostics
  3. Phase 34 stages

    Generating bytecode

    Instruction set, constants, jumps, and compiling the tree.

    1. 01Instruction set
    2. 02Compile expressions
    3. 03Jumps and patching
    4. 04Compile functions
  4. Phase 43 stages

    Running it

    Stack virtual machine, call frames, functions and optimisations.

    1. 01Stack VM
    2. 02Call frames
    3. 03Optimisations

Before you start

A complete compiler and its runtime: a lexer, a parser with operator precedence, a syntax tree, name resolution and type checking, bytecode generation, a stack virtual machine with call frames, first-class functions, and a couple of measurable optimisations.

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