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Description: Not-Yet-Arc Compiler
Clone URL: git://github.com/stefano/nyac.git
stefano (author)
Fri Jul 25 04:53:45 -0700 2008
commit  51a9a2807040d2941950cb6e37346a60e5bf4b71
tree    8b5c9add4aec355d4bfe9ee891e13f33ac9f71dd
parent  80fddcd5b11e07a043c54b4b89e3d75339270341
nyac /
README
NYAC -- Not Yet an Arc Compiler

As the name suggests, the goal of this project is to build a complete Arc 
compiler that generates native binary code.
Currently it is not Arc compatible, but it is already able to compile itself.

*) Supported platforms

The only platform supported is GNU/Linux on a x86 32 bits CPU.

*) Dependencies

In order to make nyac work, you will need a working gcc install.

*) Installation

First get it (you will need git installed):

$ git clone git://github.com/stefano/nyac.git

then enter nyac directory:

$ cd nyac

now you'll need to unpack the precompiled binaries and to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH 
(this assumes that you're using bash):

$ tar -jxvf nyac-build-linux-x86-32.tar.bz2

$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=build-arc:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

at this point, you should be able to test if it works:

$ ./build-arc/test.arc.run

*) Missing features

The two most important ones:

- Continuations support
- Lists, vectors, hash tables, etc. in function call position

Others (in no particular order):

- Some function names differ from their Arc equivalent
- Almost all of standard functions and macros are missing
- 'annotate and 'rep
- ssyntax
- quasiquoting (but the reader expands `... to (quasiquote ...) and ,... to
  (unquote ...))
- bignums, ratnums, etc. Only fixnums and floating point numbers are supported
- only ASCII characters are supported
- threading
- hash tables are still not implemented

The list could go on...
Macros are supported, though.