nexus-compiler

Nexus is a compiler written in Rust (and a little JavaScript) for a custom language grammar that runs in the browser with WebAssembly. Since WebAssembly is a relatively new technology, it is recommended to use the lastest version of Firefox or Chrome to ensure compatibility. The custom language grammar that Nexus compiles for can be found here. Nexus targets a subset of the 6502 instruction set, which can be found here, as well as RISC-V assembly (see riscv-resources/resources.md for more information).

Project Locations

• Project 1 (Lexer) - project1 branch
• Project 2 (Parser) - project2 branch
• Project 3 (Semantic Analyzer) - project3 branch
• Project 4 (Code Generator) - main and project4 branch

Setup Instructions

1. Install Rust, which can be found here.
2. Make sure cargo is added to your $PATH environment variable. Its default location is ~/.cargo/bin.
3. Install wasm-pack to get all of the WebAssembly utilities for compiling the Rust code by running cargo install wasm-pack.
4. Install Node.js, which can be found here.
5. Make sure Node.js is added to your $PATH environment variable. Its default location is ~/.npm-global/bin.
6. Recommended: Install serve to be able to start up a simple web server by running npm i -g serve. If this is not done, the make run command will automatically call npx serve to collect the package from the internet.

Nexus Makefile Commands

• make / make build: Builds Nexus into a WebAssembly module that can be run on the web through JavaScript.
• make clean: Removes the files created when the project is built, including the WebAssembly output.
• make run: Spins up a basic server to host Nexus. This is required as the current state of WebAssembly requires it to be fetched and it cannot be directly imported to the JavaScript.
• Alan: Run in Chrome.

RISC-V Execution Instructions

• Install the RISC-V GNU Toolchain, which can be found here.
• Compile your program in Nexus with RISC-V target selected.
• Copy/paste the output assembly into a file called my_program.s. The "Lots of loops" program output is provided in riscv-resources/my_program.s.
• make the assembly using the provided makefile in the riscv-resources folder.
• make run to execute the program.
• Note: GDB is really buggy for the RISC-V tools, so it is recommended to just run the program without debug options.