Developing a General Purpose Compiler

Abstract

This paper explains the theory behind compiler development and linker development. The paper demonstrates and backs up the claims made with a working compiler project for the Craft programming language http://craft-language.org. The Craft compiler is open source and can be found on GitHub: https://github.com/nibblebits/craft-compiler/ Throughout this paper we will start with a short introduction where you will be briefly introduced to the world of compilers. You will learn what a compiler is and the components that make up a compiler. After the introduction, you will then be at section 6 “A deeper understanding of compiler Internals” and after reading that you should have gained enough knowledge to start researching further into compiler development. After section 6 you will reach section 8 “Craft Compiler” where I have wrote about the difficulties and successes of this project as well as things I wish I did differently and the plans for the future of Craft compiler. You also get to see screenshots of a Snake game written in Craft language. Finally, the paper is concluded with a conclusions section.