Re: Compiling AWK/C subset to intermediate code

fburton@nyx.cs.du.edu (Francis Burton) writes:
>I am writing an (image processing) application that can be driven with a
>program or script. The script language would mix C-like arithmetic and
>flow-control constructs, function definitions, and calls to these and
>built-in functions. A language resembling AWK would probably be nicer than
>pure C.


Have you looked at Jon Ousterhout's tcl? It's in widespread use, in Unix
environments, in exactly this sort of role. Whether anyone has ported it
to MuShDOS, I have no idea...


>Because of real-time constraints the script must be compiled into an
>intermediate code (call it i-code) which can be executed fast.


Don't write off straight interpretation. We do real-time device control
in awk. (Admittedly, the devices aren't especially demanding, and it's
"soft" real-time -- missed deadlines are not disastrous.) It's simply
not true that interpretive approaches are *always* too slow for such jobs;
often they aren't, if you get past the superstitions and *try* it. Your
other constraints, admittedly, are a little harder to meet.
--
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology, | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry


--

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