From: Mark <msparshatt@...>
Date: 2004-02-22T06:21:31+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby to Parrot compiler

Charles Comstock wrote:

> Simon Strandgaard wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 21 Feb 2004 09:54:25 -0500, Sean Ross wrote:
>>
>>> This is probably naive, but I was wondering why you couldn't just 
>>> use Ruby's
>>> existing front-end implementation to parse and build an AST, and 
>>> then build
>>> a seperate generator that takes the AST as input to compile and emit 
>>
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>> Cool.. a ruby2ast converter.
>>
>> Question: is the AST a bunch of ruby classes, which can be
>> manipulated/navigated through Ruby?
>>
>>
>> One day, I hope, to extend my editor so it can interact with Rubys 
>> AST, then some really nice things becomes possible:
>>
>> * advanced syntax coloring which can identify syntax-errors.
>> * obtain advanced help about the code under the cursor.
>> * advanced code completion.
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Simon Strandgaard
>>
>
> I think we definitely need a meta-aware ruby interpreter that you can 
> hook some stuff when it's parsing it's own file.  Or even just an 
> interpreter switch that dumps the parse tree in a couple of different 
> formats, if it's too hard to get it at runtime.  This would make it 
> much easier for alot of things.
>
This sounds like a Ruby version of Perls B::** modules, which I agree 
would be a very good thing.

Though would it be best to do this by modifying the interpreter, or by 
using one of Ripper, Ruth or Rocket?

--

Mark Sparshatt