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Re: Draft sketch of bytecode generation

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From:
Dan Sugalski
Date:
October 27, 2002 10:47
Subject:
Re: Draft sketch of bytecode generation
Message ID:
a05111b01b9e1e3e599ed@[63.120.19.221]
At 6:34 PM +0000 10/27/02, Nicholas Clark wrote:
>On Sun, Oct 27, 2002 at 11:54:08AM -0500, Dan Sugalski wrote:
>>  The bytecode segments can hold more than just bytecode. They can also
>>  hold the source that corresponds to the generated bytecode, the AST
>>  for the source that corresponds to the generated bytecode, the line
>>  number information for the generated bytecode (for error reporting),
>>  and potentially some pieces of raw binary data, both for program
>>  needs and potential future expansion.
>
>On a serious note, I think column number information for syntax errors (if
>available) would be useful for languages such as perl (and not just Befunge)
>For example, it would let a single stepping debugger show you progress through
>the statement.

I'm having visions of n-dimensional numbers for errors...

  "Division by zero at (5, 6, 3) of foo.pl"

(Whatever we decide, we are *not* adding in time information--quantum 
or not, there's no way we're going to be throwing errors yesterday or 
tomorrow... :)

>  > =item Add binary data chunk to segment
>>
>>  Add in some raw binary data to the bytecode segment
>
>For each call this puts the binary into its own chunk? If not, what's wrong
>with having binary data stored as a "string" in the string constant pool?

This puts it in the binary data section. Partially for those 
compilers that want to throw extra non-string data into the bytecode 
for whatever reason, and partially for potential 
forwards-compatibility issues. We could, for example, consider the 
line number information for bytecode a piece of binary data. (Just 
binary data that we know more information about)
-- 
                                         Dan

--------------------------------------"it's like this"-------------------
Dan Sugalski                          even samurai
dan@sidhe.org                         have teddy bears and even
                                       teddy bears get drunk

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