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I'm currently working on a 3-part blog series on writing a one-pass compiler in Python that emits C. It is quite a bit longer though because we make the lexer a

I'm currently working on a 3-part blog series on writing a one-pass compiler in Python that emits C. It is quite a bit longer though because we make the lexer and parser from scratch. I started it because my students were having trouble with other tutorials because of all the jargon, theory, and libraries required. http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~azh/blog/teenytinycompiler1.html http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~azh/blog/teenytinycompiler1.html

eatonphil 6y ago
I've done the same thing for the same reason but in JavaScript and compiling a lisp dialect. https://notes.eatonphil.com/compiler-basics-lisp-to-assembly.html https://notes.eatonphil.com/compiler-basics-lisp-to-assembly...
- cellularmitosis 6y ago
  Added to my list, keep 'em coming! :) https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/1f55f9679f064bcff02905acb44ca510#tutorials https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/1f55f9679f064bcff029...
tails4e 6y ago
That's very well done, thanks for sharing. I really like the straight forward writing style, I've never attempted to write a compiler, and have only done basic parsers for day to day tasks, so like the clean, simple approach.
- azhenley 6y ago
  Very glad to hear it! Part 2 will be out in a few days and part 3 the next week.
Someone 6y ago
Good text, but let’s nitpick. I’m too lazy/confident/arrogant to verify, so let’s potentially embarrass myself here. def getToken(self): self.skipWhitespace() self.skipComment() How does that handle multiple consecutive comments? Whitespace following a comment? (returning ‘comment’ and ‘whitespace’ tokens would fix this, and would make it possible to reuse the lexer for pretty-printing/syntax coloring)
- azhenley 6y ago
  It works because a comment by definition goes until a newline, so you can’t have consecutive comments without a newline token in between. I’ll look into if there’s a better way to do it than this based on your suggestion, thanks!

eatonphil 6y ago

I've done the same thing for the same reason but in JavaScript and compiling a lisp dialect. https://notes.eatonphil.com/compiler-basics-lisp-to-assembly.html https://notes.eatonphil.com/compiler-basics-lisp-to-assembly...

cellularmitosis 6y ago
Added to my list, keep 'em coming! :) https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/1f55f9679f064bcff02905acb44ca510#tutorials https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/1f55f9679f064bcff029...

tails4e 6y ago

That's very well done, thanks for sharing. I really like the straight forward writing style, I've never attempted to write a compiler, and have only done basic parsers for day to day tasks, so like the clean, simple approach.

azhenley 6y ago
Very glad to hear it! Part 2 will be out in a few days and part 3 the next week.

Someone 6y ago

Good text, but let’s nitpick. I’m too lazy/confident/arrogant to verify, so let’s potentially embarrass myself here. def getToken(self): self.skipWhitespace() self.skipComment() How does that handle multiple consecutive comments? Whitespace following a comment? (returning ‘comment’ and ‘whitespace’ tokens would fix this, and would make it possible to reuse the lexer for pretty-printing/syntax coloring)

azhenley 6y ago
It works because a comment by definition goes until a newline, so you can’t have consecutive comments without a newline token in between. I’ll look into if there’s a better way to do it than this based on your suggestion, thanks!