A Fortran JIT compiler based on Fort

[bingao]

Hi,

I plan to develop a Fortran JIT compiler (or interpreter) based on Fort, like Cling (https://github.com/root-project/cling) for C/C++.

The brief picture of Cling is that it continuously accepts input from users, and wraps the input into a function declaration if necessary, and puts such a declaration into a virtual file. It then invokes the Clang parser and its derived Clang::ASTConsumer class Cling::DeclCollector to append parsed results into a continuously growing AST. Finally, it invokes the (wrapping) function if required and returns output to users.

I understand that Fort tries to follow the same structure as Clang. As such, can I develop such a Fortran JIT compiler based on the above picture? Any suggestion and comment are very welcome. Thank you.

[ppenzin]

That should be possible. Generally the picture would be similar to Clang, but there might be things that need to be ported over from it. Are you planning to use existing interpreter/JIT infrastructure in root/cling?

[bingao]

Hi @ppenzin

Thank you. I will mostly refer to Cling, but I will write another new Fortran JIT library based on Fort. Because (i) I do not think one needs a single JIT for both C++ and Fortran, and (ii) Cling is built on top of a modified LLVM and Clang version, which I will try to avoid.

[ppenzin]

That makes sense. I am not familiar with internals of Cling, so I am a bit curious how it would work. Would there be an interpreter? What would it the interpreter work on, ASTs, LLVM IR, or some other form?

Feel free to reach out more for help and pointers on integrating Fort into your project.