Writing a Simple DSL Compiler with Delphi [4. Parser]

This article provides a description of a parser used in my toy language project. If you are new to this series, I would recommend to start reading with this post.

Please note that this article describes an initial implementation of the parser. If you want to browse the code while reading the article, make sure that you have switched to branch dsl_v1.

After a short break I'm returning to my "toy compiler" series. This time I'll describe the working of the parser - the part of the code which reads the input (usually in a tokenized form) and generates internal representation of the program (in my case an abstract syntax tree - AST).

The goal of my project was to study the compilation step and parser was just a necessary evil that I had to deal with. That's why it is written in a pretty primitive manner, without using any improvements like a Pratt parser.

Delphi and Linux

I'd just like to remind my Slovenian readers that on 28th this month I'll be having a presentation about RAD Studio and Linux in Ljubljana.

As the presentation will be given in Slovenian language, the rest of my post containing the description of the presentation is written in that language, too.

Vljudno vabljeni na delavnico "RAD Studio in Linux", na kateri si bomo ogledali:

• Kako namestiti Ubuntu v virtualni računalnik.
• Kaj storiti, ko namestitev nagaja.
• Kako pripraviti virtualni računalnik in RAD Studio za delo.
• Kako napisati konzolno aplikacijo za Windows in Linux, ki streže podatke z uporabo tehnologij FireDAC in DataSnap.
• Kako napisati grafično aplikacijo za Windows, OS X, iOS, Android, ki prikazuje in spreminja podatke na aplikacijskem strežniku iz prejšnjega koraka.
• Z nekaj sreče pa še: 
• Kako to grafično aplikacijo pognati na Linuxu in
• Kako konzolno aplikacijo spremeniti v pravi Linux "service".

Vstop prost, prosimo vas le, da se vnaprej registrirate, da bomo znali pripraviti zadostno količino kave in prigrizkov ;)

Autumn is coming ...

... and with it, a whole bunch of events.

First, I'll be going to IBC 2017 in Amsterdam where we are presenting our products in Hall 2. I'll be there from 15th to 18th, so if anybody wants to meet, contact me.

Immediately after that I'm going to Zegrze (just north of Warsaw) to speak at Zlot Programistów Delphi (Delphi programmers convention) on 21st and 22nd. Never been there before, should be great fun.

A week later (28th) I'll be leading a workshop on Delphi and Linux in Ljubljana. (Slovenian readers - you can sign on now.)

To finish it up, I'll present two all-new topics in ITDevCon in Rome on October 11th and 12th.

All that in four weeks. Should be quite an interesting time ;)

Introducing OmniThreadLibrary Core

Yesterday I wanted to use OmniThreadLibrary as a git submodule in a top secret ;) open source project I'm working on and I was a bit shocked when it turned out that newly cloned OmniThreadLibrary folder is a 83 megs in size. Given that I only need it to support my other project and that I won't do any OTL fixing/development in this submodule, that looked a bit excessive.

So I went ahead and created a core branch which contains only the barebones - the OmniThreadLibrary root folder without any subfolders. If you want to compile such submodule, you'll also need the GpDelphiUnits repo. Together they weight measly 3,5 MB, which is a big improvement over the original 80+ megs.

I'll be keeping core in sync with the latest OTL release, not with the HEAD, so it will also provide a stable platform for all depending repositories.

Writing a Simple DSL Compiler with Delphi [3. Tokenizer]

This article provides a description of a tokenizer used in my toy language project. If you are new to this series, I would recommend to start reading with this post.

Please note that this article describes an initial implementation of the tokenizer. If you want to browse the code while reading the article, make sure that you have switched to branch dsl_v1.

With this article I'm moving into the gritty part of the project - the code which reads the source code and turns it into a beautiful abstract syntax tree. In other words, I'll be talking about the parser.

I must admit that I spent as little time on the parser as I could. After all, my main goal was to convert AST into an executable code, not to parse input. Still, one cannot write a compiler without writing a parser, so ... here I am.