This is the Git repository for the Oración assembler, also known as oras. It is released under the Artisan Software Licence. See the COPYING file for more information.
Like most Aquefir software, Oración uses the Slick Makefiles. Assuming you have them installed, simply run make (or make -j<n> if you like) and then sudo make install.
Oración serves a few purposes in the software compilation process, specifically:
- defining the syntax for the Oración assembly language (file suffixes
.osand.osa), - providing a lexer both to the assembler program and to related programs, chiefly Gordian, and
- actually serialising absolute assembly code (
.osafiles) into machine code.
To this end, Oración provides a library lexor exposing its lexer in a public API for consumption by Gordian and other utilities, and a fully-fledged program oras for serialising asbolute assembly code. The oras program comes as both a library for programmable use and a command-line interface application for use in build systems and shellcode.
This diagram gives a general overview of what the compilation procees looks like:
Although nominally “files” are used to explain the model in familiar terms, they are only files in the sense that they are streams of data with certain characteristics. It is a radical departure from the UNIX model of software compilation where files are given concrete significance in the form of object files and linking.
The effects achieved by linking in the UNIX model are actually done before assembly code is turned into machine code here; we call this desymbolisation. This is what turns your typical assembly code into absolute assembly code, a strict subset of the Oración assembly language where all of the relativity of labels has been transformed into offsets and addresses with respect to the targeted machine context.
This is done with the help of a machine context configuration file, which more or less does what a linker script would have done: defining memory regions, locating sections, defining additional symbols, locating entry points, contextualising volatility and persistence of I/O, et cetera.
Initially, Oración will support i286 and ARMv4T as processor architectures, with the IBM-PC and the Nintendo Game Boy Advance serving as machine targets, respectively. Once the software is more mature, additional ISAs will be introduced in an additive manner using the then highly developed program architecture.
Supporting these two ISAs together at the outset is important for helping stabilise the design process while Oración is in a highly volatile developmental state.