vocabulary.md

Reference documentation on available primitives

Data Structures

For memory safety, the following data structures are opaque and only modified using functions described further down. I still find it useful to understand how they work under the hood.

• Handles: addresses to objects allocated on the heap. They're augmented with book-keeping to guarantee memory-safety, and so cannot be stored in registers. See mu.md for details, but in brief:

  • You need addr values to access data they point to.
  • You can't store addr values in other types. They're temporary.
  • You can store handle values in other types.
  • To convert handle to addr, use lookup.
  • Reclaiming memory (currently unimplemented) invalidates all addr values.

• Kernel strings: null-terminated regions of memory. Unsafe and to be avoided, but needed for interacting with the kernel.

• Arrays: size-prefixed regions of memory containing multiple elements of a single type. Contents are preceded by 4 bytes (32 bits) containing the size of the array in bytes.

• Slices: a pair of 32-bit addresses denoting a half-open [start, end) interval to live memory with a consistent lifetime.

  Invariant: start <= end

• Streams: strings prefixed by 32-bit write and read indexes that the next write or read goes to, respectively.

  • offset 0: write index
  • offset 4: read index
  • offset 8: size of array (in bytes)
  • offset 12: start of array data

  Invariant: 0 <= read <= write <= size

• File descriptors (fd): Low-level 32-bit integers that the kernel uses to track files opened by the program.

• File: 32-bit value containing either a fd or an address to a stream (fake file).

• Buffered files (buffered-file): Contain a file descriptor and a stream for buffering reads/writes. Each buffered-file must exclusively perform either reads or writes.

• Graphemes: 32-bit fragments of utf-8 that encode a single Unicode code-point.

• Code-points: 32-bit integers representing a Unicode character.

'system calls'

Low-level testable primitives for unsafe SubX code.

• write: takes two arguments, a file f and an address to array s.

  Comparing this interface with the Unix write() syscall shows two benefits:

  1. SubX can handle 'fake' file descriptors in tests.

  2. write() accepts buffer and its size in separate arguments, which requires callers to manage the two separately and so can be error-prone. SubX's wrapper keeps the two together to increase the chances that we never accidentally go out of array bounds.

• read: takes two arguments, a file f and an address to stream s. Reads as much data from f as can fit in (the free space of) s.

  Like with write(), this wrapper around the Unix read() syscall adds the ability to handle 'fake' file descriptors in tests, and reduces the chances of clobbering outside array bounds.

  One bit of weirdness here: in tests we do a redundant copy from one stream to another. See the comments before the implementation for a discussion of alternative interfaces.

• stop: takes two arguments:

  • ed is an address to an exit descriptor. Exit descriptors allow us to exit() the program in production, but return to the test harness within tests. That allows tests to make assertions about when exit() is called.
  • value is the status code to exit() with.

  For more details on exit descriptors and how to create one, see the comments before the implementation.

• allocate: takes two arguments, an address to allocation-descriptor ad and an integer n

  Allocates a contiguous range of memory that is guaranteed to be exclusively available to the caller. Returns the starting address to the range in eax.

  An allocation descriptor tracks allocated vs available addresses in some contiguous range of memory. The int specifies the number of bytes to allocate.

  Explicitly passing in an allocation descriptor allows for nested memory management, where a sub-system gets a chunk of memory and further parcels it out to individual allocations. Particularly helpful for (surprise) tests.

Functions

The most useful functions from 400.mu and later .mu files. Look for definitions (using ctags) to see type signatures.

(Compound arguments are usually passed in by reference. Where the results are compound objects that don't fit in a register, the caller usually passes in allocated memory for it.)

assertions for tests

• check: fails current test if given boolean is false (= 0).
• check-not: fails current test if given boolean isn't false (!= 0).
• check-ints-equal: fails current test if given ints aren't equal
• check-array-equal: only arrays of ints, passes in a literal array in a whitespace-separated string.
• check-stream-equal: fails current test if stream doesn't match string
• check-next-stream-line-equal: fails current test if next line of stream until newline doesn't match string

Every Mu computer has a global trace that programs can write to, and that tests can make assertions on.

• clear-trace-stream
• check-trace-contains
• check-trace-scans-to: like check-trace-contains but with an implicit, stateful start index

error handling

• error: takes three arguments, an exit-descriptor, a file and a string (message)

  Prints out the message to the file and then exits using the provided exit-descriptor.

• error-byte: like error but takes an extra byte value that it prints out at the end of the message.

numbers

• abs
• repeated-shift-left, since x86 only supports bit-shifts by constant values
• repeated-shift-right
• shift-left-bytes: shift left by n*8 bits
• integer-divide

Floating point constructors, since x86 doesn't support immediate floats and Mu doesn't yet parse floating-point literals:

• rational: int, int -> float
• fill-in-rational: int, int, (addr float)
• fill-in-sqrt: int, (addr float)

arrays and strings

• populate: allocates space for n objects of the appropriate type.

• copy-array-object: allocates enough space and writes out a copy of an array of some type.

• slice-to-string: allocates space for an array of bytes and copies the slice into it.

• array-equal?

• substring: string, start, length -> string

• split-string: string, delimiter -> array of strings

predicates

• kernel-string-equal?: compares a kernel string with a string

• string-equal?: compares two strings

• stream-data-equal?: compares a stream with a string

• next-stream-line-equal?: compares with string the next line in a stream, from read index to newline

• slice-empty?: checks if the start and end of a slice are equal

• slice-equal?: compares a slice with a string

• slice-starts-with?: compares the start of a slice with a string

• slice-ends-with?: compares the end of a slice with a string

writing to disk

• write: string -> file

  • Can also be used to cat a string into a stream.

• write-stream: stream -> file

  • Can also be used to cat one stream into another.

• write-stream-data: stream -> file

  • Like write-stream but ignores read index.

• write-slice: slice -> stream

• append-byte: int -> stream

• append-byte-hex: int -> stream

  • textual representation in hex, no '0x' prefix

• write-int: int -> stream

  • write number to stream

• write-int32-hex: int -> stream

  • textual representation in hex, including '0x' prefix

• write-int32-hex-buffered: int -> buffered-file

• write-int32-decimal

• write-int32-decimal-buffered

• write-buffered: string -> buffered-file

• write-slice-buffered: slice -> buffered-file

• flush: buffered-file

• write-byte-buffered: int -> buffered-file

• write-byte-buffered: int -> buffered-file

  • textual representation in hex, no '0x' prefix

• print-int32-buffered: int -> buffered-file

  • textual representation in hex, including '0x' prefix

• write-code-point-utf8: code-point-utf8 -> stream

• to-utf8: code-point -> code-point-utf8

• write-float-decimal-approximate: float, precision: int -> stream

• new-buffered-file

• populate-buffered-file-containing: string -> buffered-file

Unless otherwise states, writes to a stream will abort the entire program if there isn't enough room in the destination stream.

reading from disk

• read: file -> stream

  • Can also be used to cat one stream into another.
  • Will silently stop reading when destination runs out of space.

• read-byte-buffered: buffered-file -> byte

• read-line-buffered: buffered-file -> stream

  • Will abort the entire program if there isn't enough room.

• read-code-point-utf8: stream -> code-point-utf8

• read-code-point-utf8-buffered: buffered-file -> code-point-utf8

• read-lines: buffered-file -> array of strings

non-IO operations on streams

• populate-stream: allocates space in a stream for n objects of the appropriate type.
  • Will abort the entire program if n*b requires more than 32 bits.
• clear-stream: resets everything in the stream to 0 (except its size).
• rewind-stream: resets the read index of the stream to 0 without modifying its contents.

reading/writing hex representations of integers

• is-hex-int?: slice -> boolean

• parse-hex-int: string -> int

• parse-hex-int-from-slice: slice -> int

• is-hex-digit?: byte -> boolean

• parse-array-of-ints

• parse-array-of-decimal-ints

printing to screen

All screen primitives require a screen object, which can be either the real screen on the computer or a fake screen for tests. Mu supports a subset of Unix terminal properties supported by almost all modern terminal emulators.

• enable-screen-type-mode (default)

• enable-screen-grid-mode

• clear-screen

• screen-size

• move-cursor

• hide-cursor

• show-cursor

• print-string: string -> screen

• print-stream

• print-code-point-utf8

• print-code-point

• print-int32-hex

• print-int32-decimal

• print-int32-decimal-right-justified

• print-array-of-ints-in-decimal

• print-float-hex

• print-float-decimal-approximate: up to some precision

Printing to screen is stateful, and preserves formatting unless explicitly manipulated.

• reset-formatting
• start-color: adjusts foreground and background
• start-bold
• start-underline
• start-reverse-video
• start-blinking

Assertions for tests:

• screen-code-point-utf8-at

• screen-color-at

• screen-background-color-at

• screen-bold-at?

• screen-underline-at?

• screen-reverse-at?

• screen-blink-at?

• check-screen-row

• check-screen-row-from

• check-screen-row-in-color

• check-screen-row-in-color-from

• check-screen-row-in-background-color

• check-screen-row-in-background-color-from

• check-screen-row-in-bold

• check-screen-row-in-bold-from

• check-screen-row-in-underline

• check-screen-row-in-underline-from

• check-screen-row-in-reverse

• check-screen-row-in-reverse-from

• check-screen-row-in-blinking

• check-screen-row-in-blinking-from

keyboard

• enable-keyboard-type-mode: process keystrokes on enter (default mode)

• read-line-from-real-keyboard

• enable-keyboard-immediate-mode: process keystrokes as they're typed

• read-key-from-real-keyboard

tokenization

from a stream:

• next-token: stream, delimiter byte -> slice
• skip-chars-matching: stream, delimiter byte
• skip-chars-not-matching: stream, delimiter byte

from a slice:

• next-token-from-slice: start, end, delimiter byte -> slice

  • Given a slice and a delimiter byte, returns a new slice inside the input that ends at the delimiter byte.

• skip-chars-matching-in-slice: curr, end, delimiter byte -> new-curr (in eax)

• skip-chars-not-matching-in-slice: curr, end, delimiter byte -> new-curr (in eax)

miscellaneous sensors and actuators

• open: filename, write? -> buffered-file

• time: returns the time in seconds since the epoch.

• ntime: returns the number of nanoseconds since some arbitrary point. Saturates at 32 bits. Useful for fine-grained measurements over relatively short durations.

• sleep: sleep for some number of whole seconds and some fraction of a second expressed in nanoseconds. Not having decimal literals can be awkward here.