Webbed Site - Compiler Progress!

Originally posted on Cohost.

Here's the main result of what I've been working on! (Apart from some use-after-frees and allocator bugs :P)

Function calls with named arguments!

Lace code

Main ::= function do
	Standard_Out : File_Descriptor := 1

	Write (
		File    => Standard_Out,
		Message => "Hello world!\n",
	)
end

File_Descriptor ::= range 0 .. 2^64 - 1
Byte            ::= mod 2^8
Index           ::= range 1 .. 2^64 - 1
Byte_String     ::= array [Index range <>] of Byte

Write ::= function (
	File    : File_Descriptor,
	Message : access Byte_String,
) do
	@inline "rax" := 1
	@inline "rdi" := File
	@inline "rsi" := Message ['first]'access
	@inline "rdx" := Message'length
	@inline "Syscall"
end

This is usually one of my favorite features of any programming language that has it so I definitely planned to have this in for a while.

This brings the parsing of aggregates and function arguments much closer together, thus simplifying my parser a bit.

(aggregate syntax)

Lace code

Foo : Some_Aggregate_Type := {
	Bar => "Baz"
}