Here's the content relating to my Day-9 programming language and the attendant compiler(s) and library code. Visit the main page for compiler-related links.

New in August 2003: Uploaded a reasonably complete manual for the Day-9 language. Doesn't cover the compiler, just the language. Find it here.

OVERVIEW

The Day-9 Compiler is something I've been working on off and on for almost two (three? I don't know anymore) years now; I estimate about three solid months of actual work went into the creation of the original compiler, and several more into the various updates since then. (Its name refers to its position in a nine-day "tutorial" I started work on in summer 2001; day 1 was Turing machines, day 3 was complex RPN interpreters, and day 9 was a bootstrapped compiler system.)

Find a reference for the language here.

The compiler system itself consists of several parts, developed pretty much in tandem:

• The preprocessor, PREP, written in C.
• The assembler, ASM90, written in C.
• The original compiler, NEW1, written in C.
• The original bootstrap, NEW2, written in antique Day-9.
• The development compiler, GECKO, written in Day-9.
• Library code for user programs, written in Day-9.
• Optional modules to extend the language, written in assembler.

Covering each part of the system in turn:

• PREP is simply a retarded version of the standard Unix CPP. There is really no reason to use it, except that I wrote it myself.
• ASM90 is a table-driven assembler for any 8- or 16-bit processor, which translates opcodes using a user-supplied table ("RET"->C3 and so on). It also has limited support for compile- time constant expressions, which are exploited by the compiler. The output of the compiler is tailored to this assembler, although a bit of hacking could easily allow a different assembler to be used.
• NEW1 is an antique Day-9 compiler, written in C. If you're unsure of what a certain construct is supposed to do, you may be better off looking at NEW1's source code. It produces the same output as NEW2, with a few trivial differences. [Note: the official development compiler is now "Gecko", which is substantially different from NEW1 in many respects. However, "Gecko" accepts a superset of the antique language accepted by "New1", rather than an entirely different language.]
• NEW2 is the actual bootstrap compiler, written entirely in the Day-9 language itself. NEW1 will compile NEW2, and NEW2 will compile itself. The translation from C to Day-9 was done pretty much mechanically, so you'll be able to trace the logic fairly easily. [Note: NEW2 will compile GECKO.NEW, and "Gecko" will compile GECKO.D9; however, this functionality may disappear in the future.]
• The Day-9 project's libraries, written in Day-9, are free source. Every routine in the libraries was coded by yours truly, although I believe the random-number algorithm is due to someone else. These libraries are required to compile NEW2: stdlib, stdio, string, files.
• The Day-9 project's "module" capability was something I added at the last minute; I haven't worked out all its applications yet. Essentially, including an assembler module pastes a chunk of assembler code at the very beginning of your program, which is executed every time your program runs. Currently, there is a module that parses command-line arguments, a module that replaces the rand library, and a module that replicates the DOS file functions findfirst and findnext. The argv and findf libraries are required to compile NEW2 properly; although no warning is produced if you don't include them, the program will not run properly without them.

THE COMPILER

Here is where you can download the compiler system itself. To make updating this site easier, I've put everything up in pieces. For instance, there's an ASM90 zip, a NEWSRC zip, and a NEWLIB zip, all of which need to be downloaded to compile the compiler itself. (And you may want CSRC or PREP, too.) To compile the C sources, I use Turbo C 2.0; I believe DJGPP should work for most of them, though.

Here are the distributions, which list what they assume you have:

• Download PREP.ZIP, the useless preprocessor. Contains C source [DJGPP, TCC] and binary.
• Download ASM90.ZIP, the new and improved assembler, and its 80x86 opcode tables. Contains C source [TCC], binary, and tables.
• Download CSRC.ZIP, the C source to NEW1. Contains C source [DJGPP, TCC] and binary.
• Download NEWLIB.ZIP, the Day-9 library source code and the existing assembler modules for NEW2.
• Download NEWSRC.ZIP, the Day-9 source to NEW2. Contains Day-9 source and bootstrapped binary.
• Download GECKOSRC.ZIP, the "Gecko" Day-9 compiler. The "Gecko" compiler extends the antique language by allowing almost every form of assignment statement that C does, plus pre- and post-increment and -decrement operators. The internal code generation is much better, and a memory bug in the code has been fixed. Contains NEW2-compatible source, "Gecko"-compatible source, and bootstrapped binaries.
• Download GECKOLIB.ZIP, the "Gecko"-compatible library source code and the same assembler modules as NEWLIB.ZIP. You don't need these libraries if you have NEWLIB.ZIP already, but some of them do compile to smaller executable code.

THE LIBRARIES

You can also view the online code to the Day-9 libraries. Unfortunately, Geocities is stupid, so you'll just have to pretend that the files have extensions .D9 and .INC, respectively.

Browse the files:
• stdlib.d9
• stdio.d9
• string.d9
• rand.d9
• files.d9
• argv.inc
• rand.inc
• findf.m

ZIP PICKER

So you want to start using Day-9, but you don't know how to start? Here's what you need to download in order to...

Compile your own Day-9 programs
• Read the manual
• GECKOSRC.ZIP
• GECKOLIB.ZIP
• ASM90.ZIP

See how a compiler works
• CSRC.ZIP or NEWSRC.ZIP or GECKOSRC.ZIP

Compile the antique Day-9 compiler
• NEWSRC.ZIP
• NEWLIB.ZIP
• ASM80.ZIP
• if you don't have CPP, PREP.ZIP

Compile the "Gecko" compiler
• GECKOSRC.ZIP
• GECKOLIB.ZIP
• ASM90.ZIP
• if you don't have CPP, PREP.ZIP

Bootstrap the entire Day-9 project
• 1. Compile the CSRC version using an ANSI C compiler.
• 2. Compile the NEWSRC version using PREP, CSRC, and the NEWLIB package.
• 3. Assemble the NEWSRC version using ASM90 and the included HEX2BIN utility.
• 4. Compile the first GECKOSRC version using the NEWSRC compiler. Assemble it the same way.
• 5. Compile the second GECKOSRC version using the first GECKOSRC version. Assemble it.
• 6. Congratulate yourself!

If you are a relatively experienced assembly programmer and want some interesting work, why not send me some more library code? Even better, I'd like to see what other people can do with "Day-9" itself. Perhaps someone could extend the language in new directions, add floating-point support (while preserving the typelessness of the language -- that's a challenge!), or something else entirely. [I'd like to see user-defined structures (a la C's structs) added to the language, but at the moment I don't see how they'd fit in.] Have fun, whatever you do.

All code and documentation related to the Day-9
Compiler Project is freely redistributable.

Information Longs to be Free.