writeonce/compiler
shoney.arickathil 0d5020a05d feat: nil literal + systems-stdlib text/container builtins
log-watcher diagnostics 272 -> 129 (parse errors 7, stdlib-module calls 49,
lowering gaps 72). corpus 71/0, woc runtest 565/0, wovm unit gates green.

- nil (haxe-parity Task 6's literal half): `nil` keyword, Ast.NilLit, lowered
  to the zero word for every `?T` — the representation the format doc already
  fixes ("a nullable field stores exactly what T stores and spells nil as 0"),
  so no boxing, no unbox on read, and every drop plan already skips it.
  Contextual on its destination in both type derivers, like `[]`/`{}`
- 23 new builtins (wob.h ids 16..38, loader arities, builtin.c): len, byte_at,
  print_err, starts_with, ends_with, index_of, last_index_of, substr, trim,
  to_lower, char_of, parse_int, split, split_ws, join, slice, pop, shift,
  sort, reverse, remove, key_at, val_at
  - fresh-Text/fresh-multi results allocate in the VM; `split`/`split_ws` fix
    their element kind (Text), `slice` copies its source's — and COPIES Text
    elements so a slice and its source never both own one value
  - pop/shift hand the element's ownership to the caller; remove drops the
    map's own key and value; key_at/val_at expose slot-ordered enumeration
    (what `for k, v in m` will lower onto)
  - parse_int is optional-shaped: unparseable is 0, `?Int`'s own nil
- obj.c/obj.h: wo_str_alloc (uninitialized Text of known length) so `join`
  builds its result in one allocation instead of one per element
- types.ml/emit.ml: builtin signatures, argument-shape requirements and
  return types for all 23 — the return table is also what classifies a `let`
  holding a fresh Text or multi as owned, so an omission there is a leak

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-14 16:43:38 +02:00
..
bin feat: try/catch over the trap system (haxe-parity plan 8, Task 5) 2026-08-14 16:35:36 +02:00
src feat: nil literal + systems-stdlib text/container builtins 2026-08-14 16:43:38 +02:00
test feat(compiler): iteration 5 Tasks 1-4 — modules, language surface, switch, typedef records + enum variants 2026-08-12 14:40:07 +02:00
dune-project feat(compiler): Tasks 1-4 — scaffold, diagnostics, lexer, declaration parser 2026-08-10 09:00:08 +02:00
README.md feat: milestone 1 complete — .wob emitter, conformance corpus, single binary; GC redesign specced 2026-08-11 19:31:26 +02:00

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/) — 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

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.