SECD Machine

This project is an implementation of an SECD machine in x86 assembly. For details, please refer to:

P. Henderson, "Functional Programming: Application and Implementation", Prentice Hall, 1980.

Requirements

A POSIX-compatible operating system
nasm
GNU make
GNU m4

Directory Structure

The project is split up into the following components:

secd: The SECD machine implementation.
lispkit: The original and extended LispKit Lisp compilers.
util: A collection of useful LispKit Lisp functions.
example: Some example LispKit Lisp programs.
meta: An SECD-machine implementation in (extended) LispKit Lisp.
calc: A simple calculator pogram
scheme: A Scheme compiler (incomplete -- see scheme/README.md for details).

See the README.md files in each component for further details.

File Types

Source File (.lso)

These are LispKit Lisp source files, which may represent a standalone program or a file to be included. A program file may be distinguished from an include file in that a program file must contain a single object which has the form:

(LETREC <name>
  (<name> LAMBDA <params>
    ... function body ...
    ) 
    
  ... other definitions ...
    
  )

The <params> may either be NIL or may be a list of variable names. If <params> is non-NIL, the parameters will be read by the SECD machine from stdin. The result of the function indicated by <name> will be printed to stdout.

Object Files (.lob)

These are compiled source files that are interpreted by the SECD machine. To compile a source file, issue the following command:

make <program>.lob

To execute <program>.lob, issue:

make run-<program>

Issuing the above commands will rebuild the SECD-machine and the LispKit Lisp compiler, if necessary. It is not necessary to manually issue a "make" command for the SECD machine or compiler prior to building a LispKit Lisp program.

The arguments to the program are read from stdin and the result is written to stdout. Some programs may read directly from stdin via the GET opcode, rather than having the SECD machine provide parse the input as arguments to the main function. Use the string "))" to separate the end of arguments to the main function from input read by the program itself.

License

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

mattbishop / secd