writeonce/compiler/README.md
shoney.arickathil 79605cbb4f feat: milestone 1 complete — .wob emitter, conformance corpus, single binary; GC redesign specced
- `woc` now emits `.wob` that `wovm` runs: emit.ml lowers the typed,
  owner-annotated AST (scope-stack registers with a >64 WO-E401 diagnostic,
  Lua-style call windows, ICALL by slot, dedup const pool, drop maps, line
  tables, implicit terminators); disasm.ml backs `--dump-bc` goldens.
- Ownership lowering consumes the four owner tables verbatim; RESIDUAL is the
  only source of borrow ops, coalesced per operand. Review caught the emitter
  consuming only 2 of owner.ml's 4 residual producers — an assignment-anchored
  aliasing violation ran to exit 0 instead of trapping; fixed, plus a backstop
  raising WO-E404 for any residual region left unconsumed.
- Conformance harness `scripts/oop-e2e.sh` (`just oop-e2e`): four fixture
  kinds with exact outcomes — byte-exact stdout, one WO-E### anchored on
  `error CODE:`, numeric trap code, gc trace. 25 fixtures incl. pricing-demo
  logic, the ownership suite, and DB_STUB's parse-but-trap. `tests/` un-ignored
  so the corpus is actually tracked.
- `woc build` produces a self-contained binary: wovm copy + appended image +
  20-byte trailer, self-exec via /proc/self/exe. Verified relocated outside
  the repo, argless, and against adversarial trailer corruption.
- Milestone 1's five spec criteria all MET (`just oop-accept`). Criterion 3
  closed by WO-E405 — the entry must return `Int`, since program mode already
  says its return value is the exit code — which deletes the leak class
  without adding return-type metadata to the format. `gc/held-cycle` retired:
  an externally-held cycle is not expressible in a post-exit pump.
- New spec: inferred GC + incremental per-shard tri-color mark-sweep, retiring
  `@gc` and reference counting. Story gains iterations 7b (that work) and 9b
  (`@table`, relations, compiler-checked query); `.dev/reference` gains a
  sparse System.Linq checkout. Priority: 5→6→7 (log-watcher) then 7b, 8, 9, 9b.
2026-08-11 19:31:26 +02:00

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# compiler/ — the OCaml `woc` compiler
Lexer → parser → typechecker → ownership pass → bytecode emitter, for `.wo`. OCaml stdlib only (no Menhir, no ppx); dune is the build runner. Sibling of the C `wovm` bytecode VM ([`runtime/`](../runtime/README.md)) — the two halves of the OOP track's spec (`docs/superpowers/specs/2026-08-01-oop-compiler-vm-design.md`) meet at plan 3, where `woc`'s emitted `.wob` runs on `wovm`.
**Stage: plan 3 (`docs/plan/compiler/2026-08-01-wob-emit-e2e-single-binary.md`) complete, Tasks 1–6 + 8** (Task 7, a parity harness against the Rust runtime, was deferred by explicit decision — the two stacks now diverge by design). `.wo` source compiles to `.wob` bytecode (`--emit`) and to a single self-contained executable (`build`) that runs `wovm` with no arguments and no repo-relative dependency. Milestone 1's acceptance gate — compile-time budget, the full conformance corpus under ASan, the single-binary smoke, both unit suites — is `just oop-accept`. Plan 2 (lexer through ownership pass) shipped first and is unchanged.
## Requirements
OCaml 4.14.1, dune 3.14.0 — Ubuntu 24.04 apt packages (`sudo apt install ocaml dune`), the version floor. Confirm with `ocaml -version` / `dune --version`. No opam packages, no Menhir, no ppx — stdlib only.
## Build, test
```bash
cd compiler && dune build # -> _build/default/bin/woc
cd compiler && dune runtest # test_diag unit checks + runner golden/CLI-smoke suite
just woc-build # same, from the repo root
just woc-test # same, from the repo root
```
`WOC_BLESS=1 dune runtest` (from `compiler/`) rewrites golden `.expected` files to match current output — use it once, by hand, to seed or intentionally update a fixture.
## Running `woc`
```
woc <path> # compile (lex, parse, typecheck, ownership-check); nothing prints on success
woc --dump-tokens <path> # stdout: one line per lexed token
woc --dump-ast <path> # stdout: the declaration + body AST, indented
woc --dump-owner <path> # stdout: the ownership pass's four tables (moves, drops, rc, residual)
woc --dump-bc <path> # stdout: disassembled bytecode for every emitted method
woc --emit <path> -o <out.wob> # compile through to a .wob bytecode module, runnable by wovm
woc build <dir> -o <app> [--runtime <path>]
# compile + append the .wob image to a copy of wovm (default
# runtime/wovm, or --runtime) into one self-contained <app>
```
`<path>` is a single `.wo` file or a directory. A directory is discovered recursively for every `.wo` file under it — same contract as `wo run` (`crates/rt/src/lib.rs::discover`): dot-prefixed entries and `target`/`data`/`node_modules` are skipped, results are sorted by path. Every discovered file compiles as one program (declarations in one file resolve for bodies in another, regardless of discovery order); diagnostics from every file and every stage print sorted by `(file, line, col)`. For multi-file `--dump-*` output, each file's dump is preceded by a `=== path ===` header line (`compiler/src/dump.ml`'s `file_header`) — a single-file run never prints one.
Diagnostics render as `file:line:col: severity CODE: message` plus a source excerpt with a caret; every shipped code is cataloged in `docs/plan/oop-vm/01-error-catalog.md`. Exit codes: **0** clean compile, **1** diagnostics reported, **2** usage/IO failure.
## Layout
- `src/` — one module per stage: `diag` (diagnostics, collector, exit-code decision), `token`/`lexer`, `ast`/`parser`, `types` (typechecker), `owner` (MVS ownership pass), `emit` (bytecode emitter, consumes `owner`'s four tables), `disasm` (bytecode disassembler, backs `--dump-bc`), `dump` (stable text dumps for all of the above)
- `bin/` — the `woc` executable: CLI parsing, file discovery, the multi-file/cross-file driver, `--emit`/`build` output
- `test/` — `runner.ml` (golden runner + CLI smoke) and `test_diag.ml` (diag.ml unit checks); `test/golden/<stage>/` holds one-file-per-fixture goldens (`tokens`, `ast`, `owner`, `owner-err`, `bc`); `test/fixtures/driver/` holds the multi-file CLI-smoke fixtures (directory discovery, cross-file symbols, diagnostic ordering) that don't fit the one-`.wo`-file-per-fixture golden shape
Governing docs (all under `docs/`, not here — this file stays an orientation README): spec `docs/superpowers/specs/2026-08-01-oop-compiler-vm-design.md`; plans `docs/plan/compiler/2026-08-01-woc-compiler-front.md` and `2026-08-01-wob-emit-e2e-single-binary.md` (+ `architecture.md`, `nullable-types-implementation.md`, `2026-08-01-haxe-parity-language.md` in the same directory). Format contract: `docs/plan/oop-vm/00-wob-format.md`. Error catalog: `docs/plan/oop-vm/01-error-catalog.md`. Conformance corpus contract (fixture layout `woc`'s golden output feeds into): `docs/plan/oop-vm/02-corpus.md`; source-language builtin surface `woc` accepts: `docs/plan/oop-vm/08-builtin-surface.md`. Runtime sibling: [`runtime/README.md`](../runtime/README.md).