Crenshaw's Compiler Tutorial: 68k Asm to X86 Vs Interpreting, Newbie Qs on Parsing and Pascal

Hi,
My first post here.


Some things in computing seem like black magic untill you understand enough
of the mysterious bits to realize they aren't. Compiling and parsing are two
such things. Being very new to parsing, I was glad to discover a simple,
hand-son tutorial called Let's Build a Compiler by Jack W. Crenshaw. It's
available on-line at:


http://www.freetechbooks.com/post-60.html
[It's also at compilers.iecc.com with other comp.compilers stuff -John]


The trouble is once he gets to assembler, it is Motorola 68k stuff and
I'm using an X86 Win32 machine as usual. I was just wondering if
anyone has re-written the assembler bits in x86? I tried Googling but
didn't hit the jackpot just yet, though many posts do reference the
book in one way or another.


So far I've been programming in more or less high-level languages Java
and Perl mainly but have a little C under my belt, too. I'm a total
newbie in Assembler of any kind so it is unlikely I would be able to
translate the Asm from one machine to the other even if given a lot of
time, effort and material. Frankly speaking, even the more complex bit
operations in C tend to make my head hurt, <smile>.


I'm also somewhat reluctant to learn Pascal for various reasons,
including lack of interest and accessibility concerns of old DOS IDEs,
so I've been rewriting the first few examples in Perl with moderate
success. At least I'll have to pay attention to the code. But
sometimes I feel like the Pascal code isn't intuitive and i need to
take a wild guess on what's going on. I can elaborate on this in
further posts or off-list if it's considered OT. Are there any good
Pascal tutorials for people coming from another C-like language? I
found some Pascal references but they are a bit too complete and
detailed, so to speak.


Anyway, assuming I'll be able to produce X86 assembler, which
Assembler should I use? I'd be perfectly happy if I could have the
Perl code spew out assembler listings for a free program that would
turn them to DOS -, or Win32 console apps. My understanding is that C,
and apparently Pascal, has in-line assembler support, so this process
would be a bit more transparent in those languages.


Lastly, if there's no X86 equivalent, my plan b is to concentrate
mostly on parsing, and implement any of the Assembler bits straight in
Perl if I can. IT would be an interpreter rather than a compiler,
then.


My last question is, does the Crenshaw tutorial make sense without
being able to implement and or fully understand the assembler bits? I
suppose the principles of parsing are sort of target language neutral.


--
With kind regards Veli-Pekka Tätilä (vtatila@mail.student.oulu.fi)
Accessibility, game music, synthesizers and programming:
http://www.student.oulu.fi/~vtatila/

Return to the comp.compilers page.
Search the comp.compilers archives again.