ovm/todo.org

TODOs

• Start points
• Standard library
• Completed
  • Write a label/jump system
  • Allow relative addresses in jumps
  • Calling and returning control flow :VM:

TODO Start points

You know how in standard assembly you can write

  global _start
_start:
  ...

and that means the label _start is the point the program should start from. This means the user can define other code anywhere in the program and specify something similar to "main" in C programs.

Proposed syntax:

  init <label>

TODO Standard library

I should start considering this and how a user may use it. Should it be an option in the VM and/or assembler binaries (i.e. a flag) or something the user has to specify in their source files?

Something to consider is static and dynamic "linking" i.e.:

• Static linking: assembler inserts all used library definitions into the bytecode output directly

  • We could insert all of it at the start of the bytecode file, and with Start points this won't interfere with user code
  • Furthermore library code will have fixed program addresses (always at the start) so we'll know at start of assembler runtime where to resolve standard library subroutine calls
  • Virtual machine needs no changes to do this

• Virtual machine has fixed program storage for library code, and assembler makes jump references specifically for this program storage (dynamic linking)

  • When assembling subroutine calls, just need to put references to this library storage (some kind of shared state between VM and assembler to know what these references are)
  • VM needs to manage a ROM of some kind for library code

  • How do we ensure assembled links to subroutine calls don't conflict with user code jumps?

    • Possibility: most significant bit of a program address is reserved such that if 0 it refers to user code and if 1 it refers to library code
    • 63 bit references user code (not a lot of loss in precision)
    • Easy to check if a reference is a library reference or a user code reference by checking "sign bit" (negativity)

Completed

DONE Write a label/jump system   ASM

Essentially a user should be able to write arbitrary labels (maybe through label x or x: syntax) which can be referred to by jump.

It'll purely be on the assembler side as a processing step, where the emitted bytecode purely refers to absolute addresses; the VM should just be dealing with absolute addresses here.

DONE Allow relative addresses in jumps   ASM

As requested, a special syntax for relative address jumps. Sometimes it's a bit nicer than a label.

DONE Calling and returning control flow :VM:   ASM

When writing library code we won't know the addresses of where callers are jumping from. However, most library functions want to return control flow back to where the user had called them: we want the code to act almost like an inline function.

There are two ways I can think of achieving this:

• Some extra syntax around labels (something like @inline <label>:) which tells the assembly processor to inline the label when a "jump" to that label is given

  • This requires no changes to the VM, which keeps it simple, but a major change to the assembler to be able to inline code. However, the work on writing a label system and relative addresses should provide some insight into how this could be possible.

• A call stack and two new syntactic constructs call and ret which work like so:

  • When call <label> is encountered, the next program address is pushed onto the call stack and control flow is set to the label
  • During execution of the <label>, when a ret is encountered, pop an address off the call stack and set control flow to that address
  • This simulates the notion of "calling" and "returning from" a function in classical languages, but requires more machinery on the VM side.