HyperTalk parser/virtual compiler anyone?

Uli Kusterer <witness@t-online.de>
9 Mar 2002 02:55:02 -0500

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HyperTalk parser/virtual compiler anyone? witness@t-online.de (Uli Kusterer) (2002-03-09)
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From: Uli Kusterer <witness@t-online.de>
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: 9 Mar 2002 02:55:02 -0500
Organization: T-Online
Keywords: parse, question
Posted-Date: 09 Mar 2002 02:55:02 EST

Hi,


  I've been writing a "virtual compiler" (i.e. a fancy interpreter) for
the HyperTalk language (used by HyperCard, MetaCard, Runtime
Revolution, SuperCard, Oracle Media Objects, PLUS and the likes) in
the last two years. Now it's pretty much in a state that it could be
used.


  I still have to decide on a license, and I would like to know whether
there's any interest in something like this, and whether anyone would
be interested in working on this project with me, and what they'd use
it for. Here's some data on the critter:


  -> Written entirely by hand in C/C++ (I _mean_ it. Some parts are a
little too un-OOP to be pretty) using the standard libraries where
possible to make it pretty portable. Ports exist for MacOS 9 and MacOS X
(Darwin/FreeBSD)


  -> "virtual compiler", i.e. after tokenizing and parsing you have a
pseudo-compiled bunch of instructions in RAM, which you can execute


  -> multi-dimensional associative arrays, RGB colors, rectangles and
points are some of the internal data types supported for variables apart
from what traditional HyperTalks had. User properties are supported as
well


  -> Additional syntax can be pretty easily added in, and may be
English-like just like built-in syntax. Pluggable syntax includes
commands, functions, object descriptors and object properties


  -> Lots of comments in the code, indented ANSI-style, but otherwise
probably neither elegant nor pretty. But it gets the job done and is at
least as fast as HyperCard.


  -> Geared towards allowing integration in any other program as its
scripting/programming language.


Your comments are appreciated!


Cheers,
M. Uli Kusterer


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