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02/README.md
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# stage 02
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The compiler for this stage is in the file `in01`, an input for our previous compiler.
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The specifics of how this compiler works are in the comments in that file, but here I'll
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give an overview.
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Let's take a look at `in02`, an example input file for this compiler:
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```
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jm
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:-co jump to code
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::hw
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'H
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'e
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'l
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'l
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'o
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',
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'
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'w
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'o
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'r
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'l
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'd
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'!
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\n
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::he end of hello world
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::co start of code
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//
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// now we'll calculate the length of the hello world string
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// by subtracting hw from he.
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//
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im
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--he
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BA
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im
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--hw
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nA
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+B
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DA put length in rdx
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// okay now we can write it
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im
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##1.
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JA set rdi to 1 (stdout)
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im
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--hw
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IA set rsi to a pointer to "Hello, world!\n"
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im
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##1. write
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sy
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im
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##0. exit code 0
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JA
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im
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##3c. exit = syscall 0x3c
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sy
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```
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You can try adding more characters to the hello world message, and it'll just work;
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the length of the text is computed automatically!
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This time, commands are separated by newlines instead of semicolons.
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Each line begins with a 2-character command identifier. There are some special identifiers though:
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- `::` marks a *label*
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- `--` outputs a label's (absolute) address
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- `:-` outputs a label's relative address
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- `##` outputs a number
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All other commands work like they did in the previous compiler—if you scroll down in the
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`in01` source file, you'll see the full command table.
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## labels
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Labels are the most important new feature of this language.
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## two passes?
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## other features
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Now instead of writing out each of the 8 bytes making up a number,
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we can just write it in hexadecimal (e.g. `##3c.` for `3c 00 00 00 00 00 00 00`),
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and the compiler will automatically
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extend it to 8 bytes.
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This is especially nice because we don't need to write numbers backwards
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for little-endianness anymore!
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Numbers cannot appear at the end of a line (this was
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to make the compiler simpler to write), so I'm adding a `.` at the end of
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each one to avoid making that mistake.
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Anything after a command is treated as a comment;
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additionally `//` can be used for comments on their own lines.
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I decided to implement them as simply as possible:
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I just added the command `//` to the command table, which outputs the byte `0x90`—this
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means "do nothing" (`nop`) in x86-64.
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Note that this means that the following code will not work as expected:
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```
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im
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// load the value 0x333 into rax
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##333.
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```
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since `0x90` gets inserted between the "load immediate" instruction code, and the immediate.
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## limitations
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Many of the limitations of our previous compilers apply to this one. Also,
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if you use a label without defining it, it uses address 0, rather than outputting
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an error message. This could be fixed: if the value in the label table is 0, and if we are
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on the second pass, output an error message. This compiler was already tedious enough
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to implement, though!
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But thanks to labels, for future compilers at least we won't have to calculate
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any jump offsets manually.
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