quan8/minigo

A small Go compiler written from scratch. It can compile itself. The goal is to be the most easy-to-understand Go compiler.

Minigo

A Go compiler from scratch.

Description

minigo is a small Go compiler made from scratch. It can compile itself.

• No dependency on yacc/lex
• No dependency on external libraries
• Standard libraries are also made from scratch.

It depends only on gcc as an assembler and linker, and on libc as a runtime.

minigo supports x86-64 Linux only.

Design

I made this almost without reading the original Go compiler.

minigo inherits most of its design from the followings.

• 8cc (https://github.com/rui314/8cc)
• 8cc.go (https://github.com/DQNEO/8cc.go)

There are several steps in the compilation proccess.

[go source] -> byte_stream.go -> [byte stream] -> token.go -> [token stream] -> parser.go -> [AST] -> gen.go -> [assembly code]

How to run

You need Linux, so I would recommend that you use Docker.

$ docker run --rm -it -w /mnt -v `pwd`:/mnt dqneo/ubuntu-build-essential:go bash

After entering the container, you can build and run it.

$ make
$ ./minigo t/hello/hello.go > a.s
$ gcc -g -no-pie a.s
$ ./a.out
hello world

How to "self compile"

$ make
$ ./minigo --version
minigo 0.1.0
Copyright (C) 2019 @DQNEO

$ ./minigo *.go > /tmp/minigo2.s
$ gcc -no-pie -o minigo2 /tmp/minigo2.s
$ ./minigo2 --version
minigo 0.1.0
Copyright (C) 2019 @DQNEO

$ ./minigo2 *.go > /tmp/minigo3.s
$ gcc -no-pie -o minigo3 /tmp/minigo3.s
$ ./minigo3 --version
minigo 0.1.0
Copyright (C) 2019 @DQNEO

You will see that the contents of 2nd generation compiler and 3rd generation compiler are identical.

$ diff /tmp/minigo2.s /tmp/minigo3.s

Test

$ make test

AUTHOR

@DQNEO

LICENSE

MIT License