clox

A high-performance bytecode virtual machine for the Lox programming language, implemented in C. This project follows the implementation described in the second half of Crafting Interpreters by Robert Nystrom.

Features

• Bytecode VM: Stack-based execution with a custom instruction set.
• Pratt Parser: A single-pass compiler that translates source code directly into bytecode.
• Garbage Collection: An incremental mark-and-sweep collector.
• Dynamic Typing: Support for numbers, Booleans, strings, and nil.
• First-Class Functions: Support for closures and upvalues.
• Object-Oriented Programming: Classes, instances, dynamic fields, methods, and inheritance.
• Optimized Method Calls: Direct method invocation and this binding.

Project Structure

• src/: C source code and headers.
• test/: Lox test scripts split by functional area.
• obj/: Compiled object files (generated during build).

Building the Project

The project includes a Makefile for easy compilation. Ensure you have gcc (or another C compiler) installed.

make

This will produce the clox executable in the root directory.

Usage

Running a Script

To execute a Lox source file:

./clox path/to/script.lox

REPL

To start the interactive Read-Eval-Print Loop:

./clox

Running the Tests

You can run all tests using the Makefile:

make test

Or run individual tests manually:

./clox test/arithmetic.lox
./clox test/logic.lox
# ... etc

Source Code Layout (in src/)

• main.c: Entry point and REPL/file loading logic.
• vm.c / vm.h: Core virtual machine execution loop and call stack management.
• compiler.c / compiler.h: Pratt parser and bytecode generation.
• scanner.c / scanner.h: Tokenization logic.
• object.c / object.h: Heap-allocated object representations (strings, functions, classes).
• table.c / table.h: Hash table implementation for globals, fields, and string interning.
• memory.c / memory.h: Garbage collector and memory management.
• chunk.c / chunk.h: Bytecode array management.
• value.c / value.h: Lox value representation and tagged unions.
• debug.c / debug.h: Disassembler for debugging bytecode.