277 lines
13 KiB
Markdown
277 lines
13 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Compiling a Functional Language Using C++, Part 6 - Compilation
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date: 2019-08-06T14:26:38-07:00
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draft: true
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tags: ["C and C++", "Functional Languages", "Compilers"]
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---
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In the previous post, we defined a machine for graph reduction,
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called a G-machine. However, this machine is still not particularly
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connected to __our__ language. In this post, we will give
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meanings to programs in our language in the context of
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this G-machine. We will define a __compilation scheme__,
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which will be a set of rules that tell us how to
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translate programs in our language into G-machine instructions.
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To mirror _Implementing Functional Languages: a tutorial_, we'll
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call this compilation scheme \\(\\mathcal{C}\\), and write it
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as \\(\\mathcal{C} ⟦e⟧ = i\\), meaning "the expression \\(e\\)
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compiles to the instructions \\(i\\)".
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To follow our route from the typechecking, let's start
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with compiling expressions that are numbers. It's pretty easy:
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$$
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\\mathcal{C} ⟦n⟧ = [\\text{PushInt} \\; n]
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$$
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Here, we compiled a number expression to a list of
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instructions with only one element - PushInt.
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Just like when we did typechecking, let's
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move on to compiling function applications. As
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we informally stated in the previous chapter, since
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the thing we're applying has to be on top,
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we want to compile it last:
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$$
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\\mathcal{C} ⟦e\_1 \\; e\_2⟧ = \\mathcal{C} ⟦e\_2⟧ ⧺ \\mathcal{C} ⟦e\_1⟧ ⧺ [\\text{MkApp}]
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$$
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Here, we used the \\(⧺\\) operator to represent the concatenation of two
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lists. Otherwise, this should be pretty intutive - we first run the instructions
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to create the parameter, then we run the instructions to create the function,
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and finally, we combine them using MkApp.
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It's variables that once again force us to adjust our strategy. If our
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program is well-typed, we know our variable will be on the stack:
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our definition of Unwind makes it so for functions, and we will
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define our case expression compilation scheme to match. However,
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we still need to know __where__ on the stack each variable is,
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and this changes as the stack is modified.
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To accommodate for this, we define an environment, \\(\\rho\\),
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to be a partial function mapping variable names to thier
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offsets on the stack. We write \\(\\rho = [x \\rightarrow n, y \\rightarrow m]\\)
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to say "the environment \\(\\rho\\) maps variable \\(x\\) to stack offset \\(n\\),
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and variable \\(y\\) to stack offset \\(m\\)". We also write \\(\\rho \\; x\\) to
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say "look up \\(x\\) in \\(\\rho\\)", since \\(\\rho\\) is a function. Finally,
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to help with the ever-changing stack, we define an augmented environment
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\\(\\rho^{+n}\\), such that \\(\\rho^{+n} \\; x = \\rho \\; x + n\\). In words,
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this basically means "\\(\\rho^{+n}\\) has all the variables from \\(\\rho\\),
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but their addresses are incremented by \\(n\\)". We now pass \\(\\rho\\)
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in to \\(\\mathcal{C}\\) together with the expression \\(e\\). Let's
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rewrite our first two rules. For numbers:
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$$
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\\mathcal{C} ⟦n⟧ \\; \\rho = [\\text{PushInt} \\; n]
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$$
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For function application:
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$$
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\\mathcal{C} ⟦e\_1 \\; e\_2⟧ \\; \\rho = \\mathcal{C} ⟦e\_2⟧ \\; \\rho ⧺ \\mathcal{C} ⟦e\_1⟧ \\; \\rho^{+1} ⧺ [\\text{MkApp}]
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$$
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Notice how in that last rule, we passed in \\(\\rho^{+1}\\) when compiling the function's expression. This is because
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the result of running the instructions for \\(e\_2\\) will have left on the stack the function's parameter. Whatever
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was at the top of the stack (and thus, had index 0), is now the second element from the top (address 1). The
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same is true for all other things that were on the stack. So, we increment the environment accordingly.
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With the environment, the variable rule is simple:
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$$
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\\mathcal{C} ⟦x⟧ \\; \\rho = [\\text{Push} \\; (\\rho \\; x)]
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$$
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One more thing. If we run across a function name, we want to
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use PushGlobal rather than Push. Defining \\(f\\) to be a name
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of a global function, we capture this using the following rule:
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$$
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\\mathcal{C} ⟦f⟧ \\; \\rho = [\\text{PushGlobal} \\; f]
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$$
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Now it's time for us to compile case expressions, but there's a bit of
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an issue - our case expressions branches don't map one-to-one with
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the \\(t \\rightarrow i\_t\\) format of the Jump instruction.
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This is because we allow for name patterns in the form \\(x\\),
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which can possibly match more than one tag. Consider this
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rather useless example:
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```
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data Bool = { True, False }
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defn weird b = { case b of { b -> { False } } }
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```
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We only have one branch, but we have two tags that should
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lead to it! Not only that, but variable patterns are
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location-dependent: if a variable pattern comes
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before a constructor pattern, then the constructor
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pattern will never be reached. On the other hand,
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if a constructor pattern comes before a variable
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pattern, it will be tried before the varible pattern,
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and thus is reachable.
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We will ignore this problem for now - we will define our semantics
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as though each case expression branch can match exactly one tag.
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In our C++ code, we will write a conversion function that will
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figure out which tag goes to which sequence of instructions.
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Effectively, we'll be performing [desugaring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntactic_sugar).
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Now, on to defining the compilation rules for case expressions.
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It's helpful to define compiling a single branch of a case expression
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separately. For a branch in the form \\(t \\; x\_1 \\; x\_2 \\; ... \\; x\_n \\rightarrow \text{body}\\),
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we define a compilation scheme \\(\\mathcal{A}\\) as follows:
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$$
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\\begin{align}
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\\mathcal{A} ⟦t \\; x\_1 \\; ... \\; x\_n \\rightarrow \text{body}⟧ \\; \\rho & =
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t \\rightarrow [\\text{Split} \\; n] \\; ⧺ \\; \\mathcal{C}⟦\\text{body}⟧ \\; \\rho' \\; ⧺ \\; [\\text{Slide} \\; n] \\\\\\
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\text{where} \\; \\rho' &= \\rho^{+n}[x\_1 \\rightarrow 0, ..., x\_n \\rightarrow n - 1]
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\\end{align}
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$$
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First, we run Split - the node on the top of the stack is a packed constructor,
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and we want access to its member variables, since they can be referenced by
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the branch's body via \\(x\_i\\). For the same reason, we must make sure to include
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\\(x\_1\\) through \\(x\_n\\) in our environment. Furthermore, since the split values now occupy the stack,
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we have to offset our environment by \\(n\\) before adding bindings to our new variables.
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Doing all these things gives us \\(\\rho'\\), which we use to compile the body, placing
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the resulting instructions after Split. This leaves us with the desired graph on top of
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the stack - the only thing left to do is to clean up the stack of the unpacked values,
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which we do using Slide.
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Notice that we didn't just create instructions - we created a mapping from the tag \\(t\\)
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to the instructions that correspond to it.
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Now, it's time for compiling the whole case expression. We first want
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to construct the graph for the expression we want to perform case analysis on.
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Next, we want to evaluate it (since we need a packed value, not a graph,
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to read the tag). Finally, we perform a jump depending on the tag. This
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is captured by the following rule:
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$$
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\\mathcal{C} ⟦\\text{case} \\; e \\; \\text{of} \\; \\text{alt}_1 ... \\text{alt}_n⟧ \\; \\rho =
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\\mathcal{C} ⟦e⟧ \\; \\rho \\; ⧺ [\\text{Eval}, \\text{Jump} \\; [\\mathcal{A} ⟦\\text{alt}_1⟧ \; \\rho, ..., \\mathcal{A} ⟦\\text{alt}_n⟧ \; \\rho]]
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$$
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This works because \\(\\mathcal{A}\\) creates not only instructions,
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but also a tag mapping. We simply populate our Jump instruction such mappings
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resulting from compiling each branch.
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You may have noticed that we didn't add rules for binary operators. Just like
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with type checking, we treat them as function calls. However, rather that constructing
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graphs when we have to instantiate those functions, we simply
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evaluate the arguments and perform the relevant arithmetic operation using BinOp.
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We will do a similar thing for constructors.
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### Implementation
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With that out of the way, we can get around to writing some code. Let's
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first define C++ structs for the instructions of the G-machine:
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{{< codeblock "C++" "compiler/06/instruction.hpp" >}}
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We can now envision a method on the `ast` struct that takes an environment
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(just like our compilation scheme takes the environment \\(\\rho\\\)),
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and compiles the `ast`. Rather than returning a vector
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of instructions (which involves copying, unless we get some optimization kicking in),
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we'll pass a reference to a vector to our method. The method will then place the generated
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instructions into the vector.
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There's one more thing to be considered. How do we tell apart a "global"
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from a variable? A naive solution would be to take a list or map of
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global functions as a third parameter to our `compile` method.
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But there's an easier way! We know that the program passed type checking.
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This means that every referenced variable exists. From then, the situation is easy -
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if actual variable names are kept in the environment, \\(\\rho\\), then whenever
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we see a variable that __isn't__ in the current environment, it must be a function name.
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Having finished contemplating out method, it's time to define a signature:
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```C++
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virtual void compile(const env_ptr& env, std::vector<instruction_ptr>& into) const;
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```
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Ah, but now we have to define "environment". Let's do that. Here's our header:
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{{< codeblock "C++" "compiler/06/env.hpp" >}}
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And here's the source file:
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{{< codeblock "C++" "compiler/06/env.cpp" >}}
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There's not that much to see here, but let's go through it anyway.
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We define an environment as a linked list, kind of like
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we did with the type environment. This time, though,
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we use shared pointers instead of raw pointers to reference the parent.
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I decided on this because we will need to be using virtual methods
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(since we have two subclasses of `env`), and thus will need to
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be passing the `env` by pointer. At that point, we might as well
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use the "proper" way!
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I implemented the environment as a linked list because it is, in essence,
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a stack. However, not every "offset" in a stack is introduced by
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binding variables - for instance, when we create an application node,
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we first build the argument value on the stack, and then,
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with that value still on the stack, build the left hand side of the application.
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Thus, all the variable positions are offset by the presence of the argument
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on the stack, and we must account for that. Similarly, in cases when we will
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allocate space on the stack (we will run into these cases later), we will
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need to account for that change. Thus, since we can increment
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the offset by two ways (binding a variable and building something on the stack),
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we allow for two types of nodes in our `env` stack.
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During recursion we will be tweaking the return value of `get_offset` to
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calculate the final location of a variable on the stack (if the
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parent of a node returned offset `1`, but the node itself is a variable
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node and thus introduces another offset, we need to return `2`). Because
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of this, we cannot reasonably return a constant like `-1` (it will quickly
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be made positive on a long list), and thus we throw an exception. To
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allow for a safe way to check for an offset, without try-catch,
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we also add a `has_variable` method which checks if the lookup will succeed.
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A better approach would be to use `std::optional`, but it's C++17, so
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we'll shy away from it.
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It will also help to move some of the functions on the `binop` enum
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into a separate file. The new neader is pretty small:
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{{< codeblock "C++" "compiler/06/binop.hpp" >}}
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The new source file is not much longer:
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{{< codeblock "C++" "compiler/06/binop.cpp" >}}
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And now, we begin our implementation. Let's start with the easy ones:
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`ast_int`, `ast_lid` and `ast_uid`. The code for `ast_int` involves just pushing
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the integer into the stack:
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{{< codelines "C++" "compiler/06/ast.cpp" 18 20 >}}
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The code for `ast_lid` needs to check if the variable is global or local,
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just like we discussed:
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{{< codelines "C++" "compiler/06/ast.cpp" 31 36 >}}
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We do not have to do this for `ast_uid`:
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{{< codelines "C++" "compiler/06/ast.cpp" 47 49 >}}
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On to `ast_binop`! This is the first time we have to change our environment.
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Once we build the right operand on the stack, every offset that we counted
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from the top of the stack will have been shifted by 1 (we see this
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in our compilation scheme for function application). So,
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we create a new environment with `env_offset`, and use that
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when we compile the left child:
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{{< codelines "C++" "compiler/06/ast.cpp" 72 79 >}}
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`ast_binop` performs two applications: `(+) lhs rhs`.
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We push `rhs`, then `lhs`, then `(+)`, and then use MkApp
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twice. In `ast_app`, we only need to perform one application,
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`lhs rhs`:
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{{< codelines "C++" "compiler/06/ast.cpp" 98 102 >}}
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Note that we also extend our environment in this one,
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for the exact same reason as before.
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Case expressions are the only thing left on the agenda. This
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is the time during which we have to perform desugaring. Here,
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though, we run into an issue: we don't have tags assigned to constructors!
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