We leave the parameter tokens alone, considering it constant, while
the parameter vec_out is used to hold the new stream of tokens. This
allows the caller to have a before and after view on the token stream
and reduces the worry of double frees.
Another great thing for C++: the ability to tell it how to print
structures the way I want. In C it's either:
1) Write a function to print the structure out (preferably to a file
pointer)
2) Write a function to return a string (allocated on the heap) which
represents it
Both are not fun to write, whereas it's much easier to write this.
This removes the problem of possibly expensive copies occurring due to
working with tokens produced from the lexer (that C++ just... does):
now we hold pointers where the copy operator is a lot easier to use.
I want expensive stuff to be done by me and for a reason: I want to
be holding the shotgun.
This C++ rewrite allows me to rewrite the actual API of the system.
In particular, I'm no longer restricting myself to just using enums
then figuring out a way to get proper error logging later down the
line (through tracking tokens in the buffer internally, for example).
Instead I can now design error structures which hold references to the
token they occurred on as well as possible lexical errors (if they're
a FILE_LEXICAL_ERROR which occurs due to the ~%USE~ macro). This
means it's a lot easier to write error logging now at the top level.
I've decided to split the module parsing into two modules, one for the
preprocessing stage which only deals with tokens and the parsing stage
which generates bytecode.
One thing I've realised is that even methods such as this require
error tracking. I won't implement it in the tokenise method as it's
not related to consuming the string per se but instead in the main method.
Note the overall size of this function in comparison to the C version,
as well as its clarity.
Of course, it is doing allocations in the background through
std::string which requires more profiling if I want to make this super
efficient™ but honestly the assembler just needs to work, whereas the
runtime needs to be fast.
The implementation for tokenise_symbol is already a lot nicer to look
at and add to due to string/string_view operator overloading of ==.
Furthermore, error handling through pair<> instead of making some
custom structure which essentially does the same thing is already
making me happy for this rewrite.
Instead of using endian.h that is not portable AND doesn't work with
C++, I'll just write my own using a forced union based type punning
trick.
I've decided to use little endian for the format as well: it seems to
be used by most desktop computers so it should make these functions
faster to run for most CPUs.
Best language to use as it's already compatible with the headers I'm
using and can pretty neatly enter the build system while also using
the functions I've built for converting to and from bytecode!
This means if I write the new assembler in another language I only
need to FFI this header rather than all the functions as well which
may not be as useful.
