This page describes the Wabbit language that is used in the Write a Compiler course. The goal of that course is to write a compiler for Wabbit that includes the entirety of parsing, type-checking, a definitional interpreter, and a compiler backend in LLVM or WebAssembly.
You are going to be implementing a programming language called "Wabbit." Wabbit is statically typed (like C, Java, Rust, etc.). The syntax is roughly similar to Go. Ultimately, you'll be able to compile Wabbit programs that execute as stand-alone executables or as programs that execute under WebAssembly in the browser.
Most parts of Wabbit are straightforward--being identical to features of programming languages that you already know. However, simple as it might seem, there will be many implementation challenges.
Here is a sample Wabbit program that computes the first 30 ever-so-useful Fibonacci numbers:
/* fib.wb - Compute fibonacci numbers */
const LAST = 30; // A constant declaration
// A function declaration
func fibonacci(n int) int {
if n > 1 { // Conditionals
return fibonacci(n-1) + fibonacci(n-2);
} else {
return 1;
}
}
func main() int {
var n int = 0; // Variable declaration
while n < LAST { // Looping (while)
print fibonacci(n); // Printing
n = n + 1; // Assignment
}
return 0;
}
This program, although small, illustrates most of Wabbit's basic features including variables, functions, conditionals, looping, and printing.
Wabbit programs consist of statements, expressions, and definitions. Each of these is normally terminated by a semicolon. For example:
print 3; var a int = 4;
A single-line comment is denoted by //. For example:
var a int = 4; // This is a comment
Multiline comments can be written using /* ... */. For example:
/* This is a multiline comment. */
An identifier is a name used to identify variables, constants, types, and functions. Identifiers can include letters, numbers, and the underscore (_), but must always start with a non-numeric character (Wabbit follows the same rules as Python). The following reserved words may not be used as an identifier:
break const continue else false func if print return true while var
A numeric literal such as 12345 is intepreted as an integer. A numeric literal involving a decimal point such as 1.2345 is interpreted as a floating point number. The literals true and false are interpreted as booleans.
A character literal such as 'h' is interpreted as a single text character. Escape codes such as \', \n, \\, and \xhh are to be interpreted in the same way they are in Python. Wabbit does not have multi-character text strings (although it could if you made it).
Curly braces are used to enclose blocks of statements or expressions for the purpose of expressing control flow or defining compound expressions. For example:
if a < b {
statement1;
statement2;
} else {
statement3;
statement4;
}
Wabbit implements a static type system similar to C or Java.
There are four built-in datatypes; int, float, char, and bool.
int is a signed 32-bit integer. float is a 64-bit double precision floating point number. char is a single character, represented as a byte. bool represents the boolean values true and false.
Variables are declared using a var declaration. They must also have a type and optional initializer. For example:
var a int; var b float = 3.14159; var c bool; var d char = 'h';
When given an initializer, the type may be omitted--in which case the type is inferred from the initial value. For example, these declarations are legal:
var b = 3.14159; // type float (inferred) var d = b * 2.0; // type float (inferred in expression)
Immutable variables may be declared using const. const declarations must include an initializer. For example:
const e = 4; // Integer constant const f = 2.71828; // Float constant const g = true; // Bool constant const h = 'h'; // Char constant
A const declaration may include a type even though it is redundant. For example:
const e int = 4; // Integer constant
An expression represents something that evaluates to a value (i.e., an integer, float, structure, etc.). Think of it as code that could legally go on the right-hand-side of an assignment:
x = expression;
Numeric types support the binary operators +, -, *, and / with their standard mathematical meaning. Operators require both operands to be of the same type. For example, x / y is only legal if x and y are the same type. The result type is always the same type as the operands. Note: for integer division, the result is an integer and is truncated.
Numeric types also support the unary operators of + and -. For example:
z = -y; z = x * -y;
No automatic type coercion is performed. Thus, integers and floats can not be mixed together in an operation. If this is desired, one of the values may be converted to the other using an explicit type cast. For example:
var a = 2; var b = 2.5; var c float = float(a) + b; // Explicit cast (a->float) var d int = a + int(b); // Explicit cast (b->int)
Numbers can be compared using <, <=, >, >=, ==, and != with their usual meaning. The result of any comparison is of type bool.
Character literals support no mathematical operations whatever. A character is simply a "character" and that's it. However, characters can be compared using <, <=, >, >=, ==, and !=. The result of a comparison is based on the character's numeric representation (i.e., ASCII code).
The bool type only supports the operators ==, !=, && (logical-and), || (logical-or), and ! (logical-not). Boolean values are not equivalent to integers and can not be used in mathematical operators involving numbers.
Expressions such as the following are illegal unless a and b are of type bool:
a && b; // Illegal unless a,b are bools
Unlike Python, Wabbit is precise with booleans. If a bool is expected, you must provide a bool and not a "truthy" value like an int.
All operators are left-associative. The following chart shows the precedence rules from highest to lowest precedence:
+, -, ! (unary) // Highest precedence *, / +, - <, <=, >, >=, ==, != && || // Lowest precedence
Relational operators may NOT be chained or associate together. For example:
a < b && b < c // OK a < b < c // Illegal
The logical operators && and || should implement short-circuit behavior in evaluation. That is, in the expression a && b, if a evaluates to false, then b is not evaluated. Similarly, if a evaluates to true, then a || b does not evaluate b.
As an example, an expression such as this should not cause a crash:
const x = 0;
const y = 1;
if (x == 0 or (y / x > 0)) { /* y/x does not evaluate */
print 0;
} else {
print 1;
}
Normally, an expression is defined by a single operation. However, arbitrary blocks of statements enclosed by { and } can also be used as an expression. For example:
var a = { 1 + 2; 3 + 4; 5 + 6; };
For such expressions, the value is the result of the last operation performed. All other results are computed, but discarded. So, in the above example, the value of a is set to 11.
Statement blocks also define a scope in which temporary variables can be assigned. For example, you could swap the value of two variables by writing code like this:
var a = 2;
var b = 3;
a = { var temp = b; b = a; temp; };
// temp variable is no longer defined here (out of scope)
This might look rather strange, but having compound expressions can be useful in situations where calculations both produce values and involve side effects such as assignments or I/O. It can also be a useful trick for debugging. If you wanted to inject a print statement somewhere, you can do it with a compound expression. For example::
func factorial(n int) int {
if n == 0 {
return 1;
} else {
return n * factorial({print n; n-1;});
}
}
Wabbit has basic control-flow features in the form of if-statements and while-loops.
The if statement is used for a basic conditional. For example:
if (a < b) {
statements;
...
} else {
statements;
...
}
The conditional expression used for the test must evaluate to a bool. Code such as the following is an error unless a has type bool:
if (a) { // Illegal unless a is type bool
...
}
The else clause in a conditional is optional.
The while statement can be used to execute a loop. For example:
while (n < 10) {
statements;
...
}
This executes the enclosed statements as long as the associated condition is true. Again, the conditional expression must evaluate to type bool.
The break statement can be used to break out of a loop early. For example, this code only prints the numbers 0, 1, ..., 4:
var n int = 0;
while n < 10 {
statements;
if (n == 5) {
break;
}
print n;
n = n + 1;
}
The continue statement can be used to jump back to the top of a loop, ignoring the remainder of the loop body.
var n int = 0;
while n < 10 {
statements;
if n == 5 {
continue; // Skip to next iteration
}
print n;
n = n + 1;
}
Functions can be defined using the func keyword as follows:
func fib(n int) int {
if (n <= 2) {
return 1;
} else {
return fib(n-1) + fib(n-2);
}
}
Functions must supply types for the input parameters and return value as shown. A function can have multiple input parameters. For example:
func add(x int, y int) int {
return x + y;
}
When calling a function, all function arguments are fully evaluated, left-to-right prior to making the associated function call. That is, in a call such as foo(a, b, c), the arguments a, b, and c are fully evaluated to a value first. This is known as "applicative evaluation order" or "eager evaluation."
Wabbit uses lexical scoping to manage names. Declarations defined outside of a function are globally visible to the entire program. Declarations inside a function are local and not visible to any other part of a program except for code in the same function. For example:
var a int; // Global variable
func foo(b int) int {
var c int; // Local variable
...
}
Wabbit also makes use of so-called "block-scope" where variables declared inside any block of code enclosed by curly braces ({ ... }) are only visible inside that block. For example:
func bar(a int, b int) int {
if a > b {
var t int = b; // Block scope variable
b = a;
a = t;
}
print t; // Error: t not defined (not in scope)
return a;
}
Nested function definitions are not supported. For example:
func foo(b int) int {
func bar(c int) int { // Illegal. Nested functions not allowed
...
}
...
}
Programs always begin execution in a function main() which takes no arguments and returns an integer result. For example:
func main() int {
var i int = 0;
while (i < N) {
print fib(i);
i = i + 1;
}
return 0;
}
Any initialization steps related to global variables must execute prior to the invocation of main(). For example:
var a int = 4;
var b int = 5;
var c int = a + b; // Evaluates prior to main()
...
func main() int {
...
}
If there is no main() function, any kind of "scripting" statements will still execute as part of the initialization step. Your compiler should emit a dummy main() function that calls _init() in this case.
The built-in print value operation can be used for debugging output. It prints the value of any type given to it. Values are normally printed on separate lines. However, if you print a single character value, it is printed with no line break.
print is an example of a polymorphic operation in that it works on any kind of data. This is different than how functions work--where a matching datatype must be given.