Ricardo Forth

A Forth dialect implemented in C, Javascript, WebAssembly and compiled from C to asm.js and WebAssembly.

This project is based on the 1992 IOCCC entry buzzard.2 (design notes: buzzard.2.design), prettified and then compiled to:

• asmjs using emscripten
• WebAssembly using Binaryen

Also reimplemented by translating the C code into Javascript and WebAssebly.

To read the process of prettifying the C code follow the buzzard.c commits in chronological order.

Setup Dev Environment

Pre setup (I assume ubuntu or debian derivative, see here for instructions to build on windows):

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get -y install build-essential cmake nodejs default-jre

git clone -b incoming --depth 1 https://github.com/kripken/emscripten-fastcomp llvm
git clone -b incoming --depth 1 https://github.com/kripken/emscripten-fastcomp-clang llvm/tools/clang
git clone -b incoming --depth 1 https://github.com/kripken/emscripten emsdk
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/WebAssembly/binaryen binaryen

mkdir llvm/build
mkdir binaryen/build

cd llvm/build

cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=.. \
  -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DLLVM_TARGETS_TO_BUILD="X86;JSBackend" \
  -DLLVM_EXPERIMENTAL_TARGETS_TO_BUILD="WebAssembly" -DLLVM_INCLUDE_EXAMPLES=OFF \
  -DLLVM_INCLUDE_TESTS=OFF -DCLANG_INCLUDE_EXAMPLES=OFF -DCLANG_INCLUDE_TESTS=OFF

cmake --build . --target install --config Release

cd ../../binaryen/build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=.. -DBUILD_STATIC_LIB=ON
cmake --build . --target install --config Release

cd ../../
# this should go in a more permanent place like .bashrc or equivalent
export PATH=$PATH:$PWD/llvm/bin/:$PWD/emsdk/:$PWD/binaryen/bin/

# Run the command so it generates basic configuration
em++

Now edit emscripten configuration file:

edit $HOME/.emscripten

Try one example

git clone https://github.com/qis/wasm wasm-example
cd wasm-example

em++ -Os -std=c++14 -s BINARYEN=1 -s "BINARYEN_METHOD='native-wasm'" \
  --memory-init-file 1 -s ELIMINATE_DUPLICATE_FUNCTIONS=1 -s MODULARIZE=1 \
    -s "EXPORT_NAME='main'" -s NO_EXIT_RUNTIME=1 -s USE_GLFW=3 main.cc -o main.js

python -m SimpleHTTPServer

firefox http://localhost:8000/

Build

make all

Files

src/buzzard.c

Prettified version of original buzzard.2.orig.c. Used to generate the native binary, asmjs and wasm versions.

src/buzzard.js

Translation of buzzard.c by hand to vanilla js

src/first.wast

Translation of buzzard.c by hand to WebAssembly text format

src/clib.js

JS implementations of c functions from buzzard.c too simulate i/o

src/buzzard-emcc.html

HTML page used to run the asmjs version, allows input in text area

src/buzzard-emcc.pre.js

Initialization code for buzzard-emcc.html

src/buzzard-binaryen.html

HTML page used to run the wasm version, allows input in text area

test/index.html

Unit tests for buzzard.js

test/tests.js

Unit tests for buzzard.js

examples/demo1.1st

Hello world program

examples/min.1st

Simplest program that runs to completion

examples/third

Implementation of the forth dialect bootstraping from minimal interpreter

examples/demo[1-5].th

5 Demos that run on top of third (third must be provided as input before this examples)

docs/*

Documentation about buzzard from the IOCCC site, kept here too to have all the info in the repo

Files on the build folder

This files are generated during make all.

bin/first

binary from buzzard.c

bin/first.wasm

WebAssembly version of src/first.wast, compiled with wasm-as

bin/buzzard-binaryen.*

Files from c -> wasm translation

bin/buzzard-emcc.*

Files from c -> asmjs translation

Presentation

Slides from a presentation I gave at StuttgartJS (August 10th, 2016) are available here: WebAssembly Presentation at StuttgartJS

Resources

• WebAssembly demos
• WebAssembly Explorer
• ast.run WebAssembly playground
• Prototype Spec in Markdown
• JS-like proposal from FF Nightly
• Wasm example and instructions to build on windows
• emscripten's emsdk/src/settings.js contains docs about the flags that can be passed to emcc
• Future of Binaryen in a stack machine world?
  • Slides where it was decided to switch from being an AST to being a stack machine
  • Structured code for the stack machine
  • spec branch with stack changes
  • Patch to chromium
• Luke Wagner -on- WebAssembly: A New Compiler Target For The Web
• Ben Titzer @ VMSS16: A Little on V8 and WebAssembly
• Emscripten and WebAssembly by Alon Zakai / @kripken
• Build Your First Thing With WebAssembly
• A Particle System experiment designed to benchmark web technologies from a non trivial piece of code: ES6, Emscripten and Web Assembly
• SHA-3 (Keccak padding) in WebAssembly WAST
• Experimental programming language that compiles to both WebAssembly and JavaScript
• Oryol 3D Engine Demos in asm.js and wasm
• wast -> forth
• WASM Pilot Text Format Playground
• gh/drom wasm/wast related projects

TODO

• Clean, extract, reuse code from bin/*.html files
• Create some micro benchmarks and benchmark tooling to compare execution time

Copyright Notice

The following files are copyright Landon Curt Noll & Larry Bassel. See COPYRIGHT for more details:

• src/buzzard.c
• examples/*
• docs/*

All other files were created by Mariano Guerra, licensed under MIT License