# Copyright (C) 2001-2007, The Perl Foundation.
# $Id: /mirror/trunk/docs/pdds/draft/pdd01_overview.pod 31786 2008-10-07T15:04:35.969931Z allison  $

=head1 NAME

docs/pdds/pdd01_overview.pod - A high-level overview of Parrot

=head1 ABSTRACT

A high-level overview of the Parrot virtual machine.

=head1 VERSION

$Revision: 31786 $

=head1 DESCRIPTION

Parrot is a virtual machine for dynamic languages like Python, PHP, Ruby, and
Perl. A dynamic language is one that allows things like extension of the code
base, subroutine and class definition, and altering the type system at
runtime.  Static languages like Java or C# restrict these features to compile
time. If this sounds like an edgy idea, keep in mind that Lisp, one of the
prime examples of a dynamic language, has been around since 1958. The basic
paradigm shift to dynamic languages leads the way to other more advanced
dynamic features like higher-order functions, closures, continuations, and
coroutines.

=head1 IMPLEMENTATION

=head2 Parser

While individual high-level languages may implement their own parser,
most will use Parrot's parser grammar engine (PGE). The parser grammar
engine compiles a parsing definition (.pg) file into an executable
parser for the language. The resulting parser takes source code as input
and creates a raw parse tree.

Subsequent stages of compilation convert the raw parse tree into an
annotated syntax tree. The tree grammar engine (TGE) compiles a
transformation definition (.tg) file into an executable set of rules to
transform data structures. In most compilers, the syntax tree goes
through a series of transformations, starting with the raw parse tree,
through a syntax tree that is close to the semantics of the HLL, and
ending in a syntax tree that is close to the semantics of Parrot's
bytecode. Some compilers will also insert optimization stages into the
compilation process between the common transformation stages.

=head2 IMCC

The intermediate code compiler (IMCC) is the main F<parrot> executable,
and encapsulates several core low-level components.

=head3 PASM & PIR parser

This Bison and Flex based parser/lexer handles Parrot's assembly
language, PASM, and the slightly higher-level language, PIR (Parrot
Intermediate Representation).

=head3 Bytecode compiler

The bytecode compiler module takes a syntax tree from the parser and emits an
unoptimized stream of bytecode. This code is suitable for passing straight to
the interpreter, though it is probably not going to be very fast.

Note that currently, the only way to generate bytecode is by first
generating PASM or PIR.

=head3 Optimizer

The optimizer module takes the bytecode stream from the compiler and
optionally the syntax tree the bytecode was generated from, and optimizes the
bytecode.

=head3 Interpreter

The interpreter module takes the bytecode stream from either the optimizer or
the bytecode compiler and executes it. There must always be at least one
interpreter module available for any program that can handle all of Perl,
since it's required for use statements and BEGIN blocks.

While there must be at least one interpreter, there may be multiple
interpreter modules linked into an executable. This would be the case, for
example, for programs that produced Java bytecode, where one of the
interpreter modules would take the bytecode stream and spit out Java bytecode
instead of interpreting it.

=head3 Standalone pieces

Each piece of IMCC can, with enough support hidden away (in the form of an
interpreter for the parsing module, for example), stand on its own. This means
it's feasible to make the parser, bytecode compiler, optimizer and interpreter
separate executables.

This allows us to develop pieces independently. It also means we can
have a standalone optimizer which can spend a lot of time groveling over
bytecode, far more than you might want to devote to optimizing
one-liners or code that'll run only once or twice.

=head2 Subsystems

The following subsystems are each responsible for a key component of
Parrot's core functionality.

=head3 I/O subsystem

The I/O subsystem provides source- and platform-independent synchronous
and asynchronous I/O to Parrot. How this maps to the OS's underlying I/O
code is not generally Parrot's concern, and a platform isn't obligated
to provide asynchronous I/O.

Additionally, the I/O subsystem allows a program to push filters onto an
input stream if necessary, to manipulate the data before it is presented to a
program.

=head3 Regular expression engine

The parser grammar engine (PGE) is also Parrot's regular expression
engine. The job of the regular expression engine is to compile regular
expression syntax (both Perl 5 compatible syntax and Perl 6 syntax) into
classes, and apply the matching rules of the classes to strings.

The regular expression engine is available to any language running on
Parrot.

=head3 Data transformation engine

The tree grammar engine (TGE) is also a general-purpose data
transformation tool (somewhat similar to XSLT).

=head2 API levels

=head3 Embedding

The embedding API is the set of calls exported to an embedding application.
This is a small, simple set of calls, requiring minimum effort to use.

The goal is to provide an interface that a competent programmer who is
uninterested in Parrot internals can use to provide access to a Parrot
interpreter within another application with very little programming or
intellectual effort. Generally it should take less than thirty minutes for a
simple interface, though more complete integration will take longer.

=head3 Extensions

The extension API is the set of calls exported to Parrot extensions. They
provide access to most of the things an extension needs to do, while hiding
the implementation details. (So that, for example, we can change the way
scalars are stored without having to rewrite, or even recompile, an
extension).

=head3 Guts

The guts-level APIs are the routines used within a component. These aren't
guaranteed to be stable, and shouldn't be used outside a component. (For
example, an extension to the interpreter shouldn't call any of the parser's
internal routines).

=head2 Target Platforms

The ultimate goal of Parrot is portability to more-or-less the same
platforms as Perl 5, including AIX, BeOS, BSD/OS, Cygwin, Darwin,
Debian, DG/UX, DragonFlyBSD, Embedix, EPOC, FreeBSD, Gentoo, HP-UX,
IRIX, Linux, Mac OS (Classic), Mac OS X, Mandriva, Minix, MS-DOS,
NetBSD, NetWare, NonStop-UX, OpenBSD, OS/2, Plan 9, Red Hat, RISC OS,
Slackware, Solaris, SuSE, Syllable, Symbian, TiVo (Linux), Tru64,
Ubuntu, VMS, VOS, WinCE, Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista, and z/OS.

Recognizing the fact that ports depend on volunteer labor, the minimum
requirements for the 1.0 launch of Parrot are portability to major
versions of Linux, BSD, Mac OS X, and Windows released within 2 years
prior to the 1.0 release. As we approach the 1.0 release we will
actively seek porters for as many other platforms as possible.


=head1 LANGUAGE NOTES

=head2 Parrot for small platforms

One goal of the Parrot project, though not a requirement of the 1.0
release, is to run on small devices such as the Palm.  For small
platforms, any parser, compiler, and optimizer modules are replaced with
a small bytecode loader module which reads in Parrot bytecode and passes
it to the interpreter for execution. Note that the lack of a parser will
limit the available functionality in some languages: for instance, in
Perl, string eval, do, use, and require  will not be available (although
loading of precompiled modules via do, use, or require may be
supported).

=head2 Bytecode compilation

One straightforward use of the Parrot system is to precompile a program into
bytecode and save it for later use. Essentially, we would compile a program as
normal, but then simply freeze the bytecode to disk for later loading.

=head2 Your HLL in, Java, CLI, or whatever out

The previous section assumes that we will be emitting Parrot bytecode.
However, there are other possibilities: we could translate the bytecode
to Java bytecode or .NET code, or even to a native executable. In
principle, Parrot could also act as a front end to other modular
compilers such as gcc or HP's GEM compiler system.

=head1 REFERENCES

To come.

=cut

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