Expand the abbreviated pointer types to full words on the language surface:
ptr -> pointer (a raw address / FFI handle)
ptrs -> pointers (a buffer of pointers)
The Ludic type name is distinct from LLVM's own `ptr` spelling: llty() maps
`pointer`/`pointers` to LLVM `ptr`, and the emitted IR keeps `ptr`, so only
the Ludic-level surface changes. Rewrites type annotations across all
sources, the 8 hardcoded pointer type-tags, the `pointers`-buffer indexing
in emit_addr, the grammars/LSP/JetBrains tokens, and the docs
(type-ptr -> type-pointer, type-ptrs -> type-pointers). int/bool keep their
conventional short spelling (like Math).
Reseeded; C-free fixpoint holds; all suites green (45/24/29); site + check.py OK.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Expand the function-declaration keyword to the full word across the whole
language and toolchain:
fn name(...) -> T { ... } -> function name(...) -> T { ... }
Done as a self-hosting migration: teach the parser both spellings, reseed,
rewrite every .ludic definition to `function`, then drop `fn`. The compiler
now rejects `fn`. Touches the parser, all selfhost/tools/runtime/example/test
sources, the grammars (TextMate shared+vscode, ludic_syntax.h, JetBrains
LudicTokens.kt), the LSP and formatter, the Python doc/vocab tools
(check-impl, check-docs, validate, palette, test-lsp), and the docs
(fences, prose, kw-fn -> kw-function).
Reseeded; C-free bootstrap fixpoint holds. All suites green (45 regression,
24 self-host, 29 tool); the docs site generates and check.py passes.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Groups B and C of the leftover-primitive cleanup — renames, not new machinery,
and deliberately NO unsafe_ prefix (a __-prefix is itself a C convention, and an
`unsafe` marker carries no signal in a fully-manual-memory language with no safe
subset to contrast against).
memory: mem_free -> free mem_realloc -> resize mem_set -> fill
ptr_add -> offset
process: os_argc -> arg_count os_arg -> arg os_exit -> exit
os_system -> run os_getenv -> getenv read_byte -> read_char
dead: mem_copy, os_time, write_byte (0 uses) — deleted
Two reseeds: accept both old and new names in the intrinsic dispatch, then
migrate every call site and drop the old names. file_open/read/write/seek/tell/
close are left as-is — they're the domain-prefixed syscall layer wrapped by
read_file, not the argc/argv-style C-ness the audit targeted; a `File` type is a
separate, larger design if wanted.
test.sh's CLI smoke updated (os_exit -> exit); check-vocabulary's grammar marker
moved off the deleted names. Reseeded (22243 lines); C-free fixpoint holds;
goldens identical; 18/18; vocab + doc-fences clean.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Raw byte access is now indexing, not C-style peek/poke:
peek8(src, i) -> src[i] (reads a byte, widened to int)
poke8(out, j, r) -> out[j] = r (narrows the int to a byte)
E_INDEX on a non-slice pointer/string lowers to a `getelementptr i8` + load/zext
(read) or trunc/store (write) — byte-identical to the old peek8/poke8, so the
migration reproduces the compiler exactly. A "byte" element type (llty i8) drives
the widen/narrow. The compiler's own byte work now reads naturally, e.g.
`is_slice_ty` is `t[0] == 91 and t[1] == 93`.
Subtlety fixed on the way: g_addr_ty (the out-param carrying the indexed element
type) must be set AFTER evaluating the index expression, since a member/index in
the index would otherwise clobber it — doing it early made a byte read load a
full pointer from a byte address and crash the self-compile.
Two reseeds: add byte-index support keeping peek8/poke8, then migrate 148 call
sites and delete the intrinsics (+ the now-dead emit_gep_i8). Vocabulary drops
peek8/poke8. Reseeded (22604 lines); C-free fixpoint holds; goldens identical;
18/18; vocab clean.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
`s[a..b]` is a fresh substring of the bytes [a, b) — the modern, end-based form
of the C-style `substr(s, start, count)`:
substr(src, start, i - start) -> src[start..i]
substr(t, 2, len(t) - 2) -> t[2..len(t)]
substr(src, i, 2) -> src[i..i + 2]
Mechanics: a new E_SLICE postfix (`base[lo..hi]`, distinct from `base[i]`
indexing) lowers to a @fn_str_slice prelude (malloc + copy + terminate), emitted
once into any program that slices. Two reseeds: add the syntax + prelude, then
migrate the 22 substr calls and delete substr. The migrator recognises the
common `count == end - start` shape and emits the clean `s[start..end]` rather
than `s[start..start + (end - start)]`.
examples/strings.ludic gains slicing (now prints 1..9). Reseeded (22673 lines);
C-free fixpoint holds; goldens identical; 18/18; vocab + doc-fences clean.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Answering your readability point directly: the compiler's own string-building —
left uglier by the 7c `+` migration, e.g. `emit_bind(("load i32, ptr " + ip))` —
now reads as interpolation:
emit_bind(("load i32, ptr " + ip)) -> emit_bind(`load i32, ptr {ip}`)
emit_bind(("icmp eq i32 " + (kv + (", " + itoa(ak)))))
-> emit_bind(`icmp eq i32 {kv}, {itoa(ak)}`)
perr(("assign to unknown " + t.s)) -> perr(`assign to unknown {t.s}`)
164 concat chains across selfhost converted by a tool that flattens the `+` tree,
keeps call/index parens (only grouping parens are rewritten), and converts only
**brace-free** literals — LLVM IR structure strings full of `{`/`}` stay as `+`
rather than becoming awkward `{{`/`}}`. No new language surface; interpolation
already desugars to the same concat.
Reseeded (22565 lines); C-free fixpoint holds byte-for-byte (the strongest proof
the reconstruction is exact); goldens identical; 18/18.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
`len` is now polymorphic — a slice's element count OR a string's byte length —
so the C-style `slen` (strlen) is gone: `slen(name)` -> `len(name)`. emit_len
branches on the operand type (slice header vs @strlen). Two reseeds: add the
string branch, then migrate the 19 slen calls and delete slen.
Reseeded (22565 lines); C-free fixpoint holds; goldens identical; 18/18; vocab +
doc-fences clean. (String slicing s[a..b] to replace substr is deferred to its
own phase.)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Strings are values now: `a + b` concatenates and `a == b` / `a != b` compare by
content, replacing the 605 `sconcat(...)` / `streq(...)` calls that made the
compiler read like C.
streq(name, "let") -> name == "let"
sconcat("load ", reg) -> "load " + reg
sconcat(a, sconcat(b, c)) -> a + b + c
Implementation: emit_bin gains a string path. Strings are pointer-typed, so any
`+` with a pointer operand concatenates and `==`/`!=` between pointers compares
content — except when one side is the `null` literal, which stays a pointer
identity test (the only two kinds of pointer `==` in the codebase). Both call a
small hand-written IR prelude, @fn_str_eq / @fn_str_concat, emitted once into any
program that uses string ops (so it works for tools, games and the compiler with
no runtime-splice dependency and no duplicate symbols).
Delivered as two reseeds: (A) add the operators + prelude with the full
pointer-aware dispatch, keeping streq/sconcat; (B) migrate every call site
(354 lines, via a string-literal-safe balanced-paren script that leaves the
function definitions alone) and delete streq/sconcat. examples/strings.ludic +
a test.sh smoke (prints 1 2 3 4 5) guard it.
Reseeded (21890 lines); C-free fixpoint holds; goldens byte-identical; 18/18;
vocab + doc-fences clean.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
`null` is now a real pointer literal and null-tests are comparisons, instead of
`ptr_null()` and `ptr_is_null(x)`:
ptr_null() -> null
ptr_is_null(x) -> (x == null)
not ptr_is_null(x) -> (x != null)
Mechanics: a new E_NULL primary (`null`, like true/false) lowers to the `null`
pointer; emit_bin's comparison path now picks `ptr` vs `i32` from operand type
(via llty), so `==`/`!=` work on any pointer/record/slice. The two intrinsics are
deleted.
Two reseeds: (A) add the literal + ptr comparison keeping the intrinsics; (B)
migrate all 182 call sites (compiler + runtime, via a balanced-paren script that
skips string-literal args and rewrites `not ptr_is_null` to `!= null`) and delete
the intrinsics. Node/Val/Buf/Tok field defaults now read `ptr = null`.
Vocabulary drops the two from LUDIC_INTRINSICS; `null` joins true/false as a
language constant (grammar + ludic_syntax.h). LANGUAGE.md notes the literal.
Reseeded (21664 lines); C-free fixpoint holds; goldens identical; 17/17; vocab +
doc-fences clean.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
First step of the "stop feeling like C" pass. Bitwise ops were functions
(`band(x, MASK)`, `shl(a, 3)`); they are now real operators:
band -> & bor -> | bxor -> ^ shl -> << shr -> >> bnot -> ~
Precedence is Go-style so the C footgun is gone: `<<`/`>>`/`&` bind like `*`,
`|`/`^` like `+`, both tighter than comparison — `flags & MASK == 0` parses as
`(flags & MASK) == 0`. `>>` is logical (lshr), matching the old `shr`.
Mechanics: lexer tokenizes `<< >> & | ^ ~`; p_mul takes `<< >> &`, p_add takes
`| ^`, p_unary takes `~`; emit_bin routes them through the existing int arith
path (arith_code gains and/or/xor/shl/lshr) and E_UN handles `~`. The six
intrinsics are deleted.
Delivered as two reseeds: (A) add the operators keeping the intrinsics, (B)
migrate every call site to operator form (85 lines across compiler + runtime,
via a balanced-paren call->operator script; two multi-line big-endian reads in
image/truetype done by hand) and delete the intrinsics. Vocabulary drops the six
from LUDIC_INTRINSICS (ludic_syntax.h, grammar, LudicTokens.kt) and the grammar
gains a bitwise-operator rule. LANGUAGE.md precedence table rewritten.
Reseeded (21724 lines); C-free fixpoint holds; goldens byte-identical (the PNG
and TrueType decoders lean on these ops); 17/17; vocab + doc-fences clean.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Bindings now signal mutability the way Rust/Swift do, instead of `let` meaning
"local" and `var` meaning "module-level":
- `let x = e` -> immutable binding; a later `x = …` is a compile error
(`cannot assign to immutable 'x' … use var`).
- `var x = e` -> mutable binding, at local OR module scope (position decides
scope; the keyword decides mutability).
- `const` -> unchanged (compile-time).
Immutability is of the *binding*, not the object: `let n = new Node; n.kind = 1`
is fine (mutation through the reference); only rebinding `n` is rejected. The
check lives in emit_assign — a direct `name =` whose target is a `let` local
(loc_mut == 0) errors; field/index targets and `var`/param/loop bindings are
unaffected.
Delivered as three reseeds so the self-hosting compiler never had to compile
source its own rules would reject:
A) add `var` as a local statement + per-local mutability tracking (loc_mut),
no enforcement;
B) migrate every reassigned `let` -> `var` across the compiler, runtime and
examples (337 declarations), driven by a per-function, string/comment-aware
scan (binding targets only, never `x.f =` / `x[i] =`);
C) turn on the check. bootstrap-cfree (compiler vs its own source) and every
golden build (which splices the runtime) then proved zero reassigned `let`
was missed anywhere.
Also folded in: removed leftover debug instrumentation in block() (a `cur=` /
print_int(777…) trace on the separator-error path) and fixed parse.ludic's stale
header comment (no more `struct`). Reseeded (21711 lines); C-free fixpoint holds;
goldens identical; 17/17; vocab + doc-fences clean.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The parser now requires a newline or ';' between statements (block() in
selfhost/parse.ludic); two statements may no longer sit adjacent with only
spaces. Also fixed if-without-else swallowing its trailing separator.
Migration: tools/ludic-tools/migrate_separators.c inserts ';' at statement
boundaries corpus-wide (examples, runtime, 25 self-host fragments, ~1100
boundaries). Verified semantically identical — the migrated compiler compiles
itself to IR byte-identical to the pre-migration seed, and every golden game
renders identically. Reseeded to the strict compiler; C-free fixpoint holds;
test.sh 14/14.
Docs: Rule B documented in LANGUAGE.md; BOOTSTRAP.md R1 + stale fences updated;
check-docs green across all docs. Fixed a multi-line string literal in
emit_expr.ludic (byte-identical \n escape) that the C toolchain lexer mis-lexes.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Self-hosted compiler (selfhost/*.ludic), runtime, examples, editor tooling,
and docs. Phase 1 of the syntax-redesign cohesion pass has landed:
edge-system fix, signature-query, when-alias, and the documentation truth-pass.
Suite green (14/14), C-free bootstrap fixpoint holds.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
