Commit
This commit does not belong to any branch on this repository, and may belong to a fork outside of the repository.
[docs] add links to architecture.svg, and a HTML document to which it…
… links. Also crops and resizes the SVG. The HTML is take from my blog, needs a bit polishing and some style sheets.
- Loading branch information
Showing
2 changed files
with
529 additions
and
332 deletions.
There are no files selected for viewing
This file contains bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters.
Learn more about bidirectional Unicode characters
| Original file line number | Diff line number | Diff line change |
|---|---|---|
| @@ -0,0 +1,108 @@ | ||
| <html> | ||
| <head> | ||
| <title>Rakudo architectural overview</title> | ||
| </head> | ||
| <body style="margin:2ex"> | ||
|
|
||
| <h1>Rakudo architectural overview</h1> | ||
|
|
||
| <p>(This started off <a | ||
| href="http://perlgeek.de/blog-en/perl-6/rakudo-overview.html">as a blog | ||
| post</a>, which didn't have the fancy clickable SVG image).</p> | ||
|
|
||
| <object | ||
| style="margin:2ex; float:left" | ||
| data="/architecture.svg" | ||
| type="image/svg+xml" | ||
| alt="Rakudo flow chart" | ||
| > | ||
| </object> | ||
| <a id="action-methods" /> | ||
| <h2 id="parser" >Parser and action methods</h2> | ||
|
|
||
| <p>The source code is entered at the top of the machine named Rakudo, and is | ||
| transformed in various stages. The first two, parser and action methods, are | ||
| actually part of Rakudo, and are hosted in the Rakudo repository. They are | ||
| written in two different subsets of Perl 6, the regexes (parser), and "Not | ||
| Quite Perl 6", short NQP (action methods).</p> | ||
|
|
||
| <a id="post-compiler" /> | ||
| <h2 id="past-compiler">PAST and POST | ||
| compiler</h2> | ||
|
|
||
| <p>The next two stages (PAST and POST compiler) are part of the so-called | ||
| "Parrot Compiler Toolkit", short PCT. Both PAST and POST are structural | ||
| representations of the program, with PAST being more high-level than POST. | ||
| Both compilers are written in PIR, the parrot | ||
| assembly language, and are distributed along with parrot. They are also used | ||
| by many other parrot based languages.</p> | ||
|
|
||
| <a id="parrot-runloops" /> | ||
| <h2 id="imcc">IMCC and Parrot runcores</h2> | ||
|
|
||
| <p>The POST compiler emits PIR, which IMCC transforms into byte code. IMCC is | ||
| parrot's PIR compiler, written in C and statically linked into parrot. The | ||
| byte code (PBC) can then be stored to disk, or executed in memory by a | ||
| so-called <em>run core</em> or <em>run loop</em>, which is in some sense | ||
| the heart | ||
| of parrot - or one of the hearts, because there are several different ones | ||
| available (one for just-in-time compilation (JIT), one for debugging etc.).</p> | ||
|
|
||
| <p>There are also some supporting custom types and operations in Rakudo called | ||
| <em>dynamic PMCs</em> and <em>dynamic ops</em> which are written in C, and | ||
| helper functions written in other languages (namely NQP and PIR). Those do | ||
| not show up in the flow chart.</p> | ||
|
|
||
| <h2 id="setting">Setting library</h2> | ||
|
|
||
| <p>The part of Rakudo described so far is the <em>stage one</em> compiler. | ||
| In the build process it is compiled first, and then it compiles the <em>setting | ||
| library</em> down to PBC. "Setting library" is a fancy term describing the | ||
| built-in functions which are written in Perl 6. The result of this compilation | ||
| (together with a low level runtime library in PIR) is linked together with the | ||
| stage one compiler and parrot, the result is the <code>perl6</code> | ||
| executable.</p> | ||
|
|
||
| <h2 id="glossary">Glossary</h2> | ||
|
|
||
| <dl> | ||
| <dt>PGE</dt> | ||
| <dd>Parrot Grammar Engine, parrot's grammar engine for Perl 6 regexes and | ||
| grammars.</dd> | ||
|
|
||
| <dt>NQP</dt> | ||
| <dd>Not Quite Perl 6, a small subset of Perl 6 that is used for tree | ||
| transformations in compilers.</dd> | ||
|
|
||
| <dt>PAST</dt> | ||
| <dd>Parrot Abstract Syntax Tree, an in-memory representation of | ||
| structures common to many programming languages (like variable | ||
| declarations, branches, loops, subroutine calls).</dd> | ||
|
|
||
| <dt>POST</dt> | ||
| <dd>Parrot Opcode Syntax Tree, an in-memory low level representation | ||
| of programs.</dd> | ||
|
|
||
| <dt>PCT</dt> | ||
| <dd>Parrot Compiler Toolkit, a collection of tools and compilers useful | ||
| for writing other compilers.</dd> | ||
|
|
||
| <dt>PIR</dt> | ||
| <dd>Parrot Intermediate Representation, the most commonly used for of | ||
| parrot assembly (which is still high-level enough to be written by | ||
| humans).</dd> | ||
|
|
||
| <dt>IMCC</dt> | ||
| <dd>InterMediate Code Compiler, the part of parrot that compiles PIR | ||
| into byte code.</dd> | ||
|
|
||
| <dt>PBC</dt> | ||
| <dd>Parrot Byte Code, the binary form to which all parrot programs are | ||
| compiled in the end.</dd> | ||
| </dl> | ||
|
|
||
| </body> | ||
| </html> | ||
| <!-- | ||
| vim: ft=html spell sw=4 ts=4 expandtab tw=75 | ||
| --> |
Oops, something went wrong.