[Coco] RELIC Is Coming (was Re: [ON TOPIC] The Amsterdam Compiler Kit)

[Boisy Pitre]

Hey M,

I was going to wait and post on this in a few months, but I saw your  
message.  Interesting.

This closely mirrors a compiler project that I am working on for my  
semester project in graduate school.  My compiler tool chain is  
called RELIC (REtargetable Language Independent Compiler) and is  
architected just like this one.  It is based on PCCTS (the Perdue  
Compiler Construction Tool Set) and is a continuation of work I did  
for my undergraduate compiler class.

While RELIC can support other languages (and indeed there are PCCTS  
grammar files for a number of popular ones), right now RELIC's front- 
end language is "Ragin' Basic" which is a subset of Basic09.  That  
front-end component reads in code from a file and puts it out to i- 
code, which is then passed through an optimizer, then onto be6809, a  
back-end which translates the i-code to 6809 assembly.  That code is  
then pushed to rma then to rlink for linking.  I've created many  
small test programs, and to automate the testing process, I run a  
script which performs the compiler steps, then copies the executable  
to an OS-9 disk image using ToolShed.  That disk is then mounted into  
the emulator where I boot into NitrOS-9 and run the test cases.

That's correct.  I am using the CoCo and NitrOS-9 as the basis  
platform for my semester project.  The professor who is monitoring my  
work started out as an Apple II head and thinks it's really cool.

There are some shortcomings: the implementation of the Ragin' Basic  
language in my current front-end is a bit limited and executables are  
way bigger than they need to be because the optimizer needs work, but  
I am creating NitrOS-9 executables that run on a CoCo using this  
compiler tool chain, and they work.

I plan on exhibiting the documentation and demonstrating the compiler  
at the CoCoFest at my booth at the end of March.

After I've completed the project (sometime in May), I fully intend to  
make it available to the CoCo community to embrace and extend.

Call me a cynic, but past efforts to get a true cross-compiler system  
for the CoCo have always ended up yielding nothing.  There was gcc,  
sdcc, and now this.  RELIC is running NOW under Linux and Mac OS X as  
a cross compiler to CoCo/NitrOS-9 and is generating executables NOW.   
My hope is that a lot of the talk about compilers that has been  
generated on this list over the years will finally transform itself  
into action, and interested parties will take RELIC to the next level.

Boisy

On Feb 26, 2007, at 2:24 AM, Mannequin* wrote:

> /me hears people in the background, "OMG! On topic post!!!!! 
> 1111oneone"
>
> Yeah, I've run in to something that might interest a few of us here.
>
> http://tack.sourceforge.net/
>
> -M.
>
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> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
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--
Boisy G. Pitre
Email: boisy at boisypitre.com
Web: http://www.boisypitre.com/
Phone: 337-781-3570