How would I go about writing an interpreter in C? [closed] - c

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I'd love some references, or tips, possibly an e-book or two. I'm not looking to write a compiler, just looking for a tutorial I could follow along and modify as I go. Thank you for being understanding!
BTW: It must be C.
Any more replies would be appreciated.

Answer 1

A great way to get started writing an interpreter is to write a simple machine simulator. Here's a simple language you can write an interpreter for:
The language has a stack and 6 instructions:
push <num> # push a number on to the stack
pop # pop off the first number on the stack
add # pop off the top 2 items on the stack and push their sum on to the stack. (remember you can add negative numbers, so you have subtraction covered too). You can also get multiplication my creating a loop using some of the other instructions with this one.
ifeq <address> # examine the top of the stack, if it's 0, continue, else, jump to <address> where <address> is a line number
jump <address> # jump to a line number
print # print the value at the top of the stack
dup # push a copy of what's at the top of the stack back onto the stack.
Once you've written a program that can take these instructions and execute them, you've essentially created a very simple stack based virtual machine. Since this is a very low level language, you won't need to understand what an AST is, how to parse a grammar into an AST, and translate it to machine code, etc. That's too complicated for a tutorial project. Start with this, and once you've created this little VM, you can start thinking about how you can translate some common constructs into this machine. e.g. you might want to think about how you might translate a C if/else statement or while loop into this language.
Edit:
From the comments below, it sounds like you need a bit more experience with C before you can tackle this task.
What I would suggest is to first learn about the following topics:
scanf, printf, putchar, getchar - basic C IO functions
struct - the basic data structure in C
malloc - how to allocate memory, and the difference between stack memory and heap memory
linked lists - and how to implement a stack, then perhaps a binary tree (you'll need to
understand structs and malloc first)
Then it'll be good to learn a bit more about the string.h library as well
- strcmp, strdup - a couple useful string functions that will be useful.
In short, C has a much higher learning curve compared to python, just because it's a lower level language and you have to manage your own memory, so it's good to learn a few basic things about C first before trying to write an interpreter, even if you already know how to write one in python.

Answer 2

The only difference between an interpreter and a compiler is that instead of generating code from the AST, you execute it in a VM instead. Once you understand this, almost any compiler book, even the Red Dragon Book (first edition, not second!), is enough.

Answer 3

I see this is a bit of a late reply, however since this thread showed up at second place in the result list when I did a search for writing an interpreter and no one have mentioned anything very concrete I will provide the following example:
Disclaimer: This is just some simple code I wrote in a hurry in order to have a foundation for the explanation below and are therefore not perfect, but it compiles and runs, and seems to give the expected answers.
Read the following C-code from bottom to top:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
double expression(void);
double vars[26]; // variables
char get(void) { char c = getchar(); return c; } // get one byte
char peek(void) { char c = getchar(); ungetc(c, stdin); return c; } // peek at next byte
double number(void) { double d; scanf("%lf", &d); return d; } // read one double
void expect(char c) { // expect char c from stream
char d = get();
if (c != d) {
fprintf(stderr, "Error: Expected %c but got %c.\n", c, d);
}
}
double factor(void) { // read a factor
double f;
char c = peek();
if (c == '(') { // an expression inside parantesis?
expect('(');
f = expression();
expect(')');
} else if (c >= 'A' && c <= 'Z') { // a variable ?
expect(c);
f = vars[c - 'A'];
} else { // or, a number?
f = number();
}
return f;
}
double term(void) { // read a term
double t = factor();
while (peek() == '*' || peek() == '/') { // * or / more factors
char c = get();
if (c == '*') {
t = t * factor();
} else {
t = t / factor();
}
}
return t;
}
double expression(void) { // read an expression
double e = term();
while (peek() == '+' || peek() == '-') { // + or - more terms
char c = get();
if (c == '+') {
e = e + term();
} else {
e = e - term();
}
}
return e;
}
double statement(void) { // read a statement
double ret;
char c = peek();
if (c >= 'A' && c <= 'Z') { // variable ?
expect(c);
if (peek() == '=') { // assignment ?
expect('=');
double val = expression();
vars[c - 'A'] = val;
ret = val;
} else {
ungetc(c, stdin);
ret = expression();
}
} else {
ret = expression();
}
expect('\n');
return ret;
}
int main(void) {
printf("> "); fflush(stdout);
for (;;) {
double v = statement();
printf(" = %lf\n> ", v); fflush(stdout);
}
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
This is an simple recursive descend parser for basic mathematical expressions supporting one letter variables. Running it and typing some statements yields the following results:
> (1+2)*3
= 9.000000
> A=1
= 1.000000
> B=2
= 2.000000
> C=3
= 3.000000
> (A+B)*C
= 9.000000
You can alter the get(), peek() and number() to read from a file or list of code lines. Also you should make a function to read identifiers (basically words). Then you expand the statement() function to be able to alter which line it runs next in order to do branching. Last you add the branch operations you want to the statement function, like
if "condition" then
"statements"
else
"statements"
endif.
while "condition" do
"statements"
endwhile
function fac(x)
if x = 0 then
return 1
else
return x*fac(x-1)
endif
endfunction
Obviously you can decide the syntax to be as you like. You need to think about ways of define functions and how to handle arguments/parameter variables, local variables and global variables. If preferable arrays and data structures. References∕pointers. Input/output?
In order to handle recursive function calls you probably need to use a stack.
In my opinion this would be easier to do all this with C++ and STL. Where for example one std::map could be used to hold local variables, and another map could be used for globals...
It is of course possible to write a compiler that build an abstract syntax tree out of the code. Then travels this tree in order to produce either machine code or some kind of byte code which executed on a virtual machine (like Java and .Net). This gives better performance than naively parse line by line and executing them, but in my opinion that is NOT writing an interpreter. That is writing both a compiler and its targeted virtual machine.
If someone wants to learn to write an interpreter, they should try making the most basic simple and practical working interpreter.