<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"><title>Metaprogramming</title><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.76.1"><meta name="keywords" content="assembly, assembler, asm, inline, 32-bit, IA-32, i386, x86, nasm, gas, as, as86, yasm, fasm, shasm, osimpa, OS, Linux, Unix, kernel, system, libc, glibc, system call, interrupt, small, fast, embedded, hardware, port, macroprocessor, metaprogramming, preprocessor"><link rel="home" href="Assembly-HOWTO.html" title="Linux Assembly HOWTO"><link rel="up" href="metaprogramming.html" title="Chapter 4. Metaprogramming"><link rel="prev" href="metaprogramming.html" title="Chapter 4. Metaprogramming"><link rel="next" href="conventions.html" title="Chapter 5. Calling conventions"></head><body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="#0000FF" vlink="#840084" alink="#0000FF"><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Metaprogramming</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="metaprogramming.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">Chapter 4. Metaprogramming</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="conventions.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr></div><div class="section" title="Metaprogramming"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="idp335856"></a>Metaprogramming</h2></div></div></div>
<p>
Instead of using an external filter that expands macros, one way to do things
is to write programs that write part or all of other programs.
</p>
<p>
For instance, you could use a program outputting source code
</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" type="disc"><li class="listitem">
<p>
to generate sine/cosine/whatever lookup tables,
</p>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>
to extract a source-form representation of a binary file,
</p>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>
to compile your bitmaps into fast display routines,
</p>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>
to extract documentation, initialization/finalization code,
description tables, as well as normal code from the same source files,
</p>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>
to have customized assembly code, generated from a perl/shell/scheme script
that does arbitrary processing,
</p>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>
to propagate data defined at one point only into several cross-referencing
tables and code chunks.
</p>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>
etc.
</p>
</li></ul></div><p>
</p>
<p>
Think about it!
</p>
<div class="section" title="Backends from compilers"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="idp346032"></a>Backends from compilers</h3></div></div></div>
<p>
Compilers like GCC, SML/NJ, Objective CAML, MIT-Scheme, CMUCL, etc,
do have their own generic assembler backend,
which you might choose to use,
if you intend to generate code semi-automatically
from the according languages,
or from a language you hack:
rather than write great assembly code,
you may instead modify a compiler so that it dumps great assembly code!
</p>
</div>
<div class="section" title="The New-Jersey Machine-Code Toolkit"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="idp347744"></a>The New-Jersey Machine-Code Toolkit</h3></div></div></div>
<p>
There is a project, using the programming language Icon
(with an experimental ML version),
to build a basis for producing assembly-manipulating code.
See around
<a class="ulink" href="http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~nr/toolkit/" target="_top">
http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~nr/toolkit/</a>
</p>
</div>
<div class="section" title="TUNES"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="idp349936"></a>TUNES</h3></div></div></div>
<p>
The <a class="ulink" href="http://www.tunes.org" target="_top">TUNES Project</a>
for a Free Reflective Computing System is developing its own assembler
as an extension to the Scheme language, as part of its development process.
It doesn't run at all yet, though help is welcome.
</p>
<p>
The assembler manipulates abstract syntax trees, so it could equally serve as
the basis for a assembly syntax translator, a disassembler, a common
assembler/compiler back-end, etc. Also, the full power of a real language,
Scheme, make it unchallenged as for macroprocessing/metaprogramming.
</p>
</div>
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