While-Trieste

This project implements a compiler for the While language in Trieste.

The main focus is on dataflow analysis and a framework for this is developed. The implemented analyses are zero analysis, constant propagation and liveness analysis. These are used in optimisation rewrite passes, such as constant folding and dead code elimination.

Compilation and running the executables

The project is compiled by running:

make

This creates two executable files ./build/while and ./build/while_trieste.

The first one is used if you want to run static analysis and compile the program. The second one only runs the parsing passes and the normalisation pass. Both have a theoretically useful --help option.

Using the test suite

After compiling the project, you can save the output of compiling all the example programs by running ninja update-dump in the ./build directory. After that you can run ctest to compile all the programs again and compare the output (you may have to run cmake once before it works). This is useful for regression testing when making changes to the compiler.

Compiling to Verona Bytecode

Running ./build/while foo.while will produce a file called foo.trieste. This file can be compiled to Verona bytecode by running ./build/_deps/vbc-build/vbcc/vbcc build foo.trieste -b foo.vbc (this will also overwrite foo.trieste; use -o bar.trieste to avoid this). The bytecode can be interpreted by running ./build/_deps/vbc-build/vbci/vbci foo.vbc.

Benchmarking

Its possible to run a benchmarking script, executing the analyses on randomized programs. To execute it run:

./stats

In the script both the number of runs and lines of code generated can be specified.