PL/0 Language Tools

PL/0 is a collection of tools for learning about parsers, interpreters, compilers and virtual machines. It has been designed from the ground up to be a minimal implementation of several common interpreter and compiler functions, including the following:

• Lexical analysis and tokenisation.
• Recursive descent parsing to an abstract syntax tree.
• Direct syntax-tree interpretation.
• Static compilation to a stack based assembly language.
• Assembly from symbolic assembly language to virtual op-codes.
• Virtual machine execution using a stack-based computer.

Each major function is a separate Python program typically between 100-300 lines of code.

Install

• Installation Guide
• Stable Releases
• Source Code

Documentation

Getting Started

• How to run the examples

Individual Components

• Lexer
• Parser
• Interpreter
• Compiler
• Assembler
• (Virtual) Machine

Further Reading

• Wikipedia: PL/0
• PLY (Python Lex Yacc)

Credits

This project was developed by Samuel Williams, with support from Tadao Takaoka and the University of Canterbury Summer Scholarship program (2010/2011).