Virtualice VM

Stack based vm for super fast execution. It currently supports the following features:

✅ → signed (integers) and unsigned (natural) numbers
✅ → floating point (real) numbers
✅ → complex numbers
✅ → control flow jump and compare instructions
✅ → stack based arithmetic operations on pure types
✅ → bitwise and boolean operations
✅ → global and local variables
✅ → functions with parameters
✅ → opcodes for a comprehensive math library
✅ → exceptions handling, flag register
✅ → memory, page model
🔘 → threads, fork-join model
🔘 → file system, unix model
🔘 → files, posix model
🔘 → networks, (probably Berkeley sockets)

🚫 Critical: DO NOT use any of the following functions as they need revision.

I/O functions

HEX	Prototype	Description
E5	estream([chr]);	Prints the null terminated string to stderr.
05	ostream([chr]);	Prints the null terminated string to stdout.
ED	edata(p: u32);	Prints the string in program data pointer p to stderr.
0D	odata(p: u32);	Prints the string in program data pointer p to stdout.
EF	eflush();	Flushes stderr.
0F	oflush();	Flushes stdout.
15	istream(): [chr];	Waits for the enter key, returns the last line of stdin.

Threading management functions

HEX	Prototype	Description
F0	fork(p: u32): [thr];	Spawns and returns a thread at instruction p.
10	join();	Ends the current thread, joining the main flow.
57	sleep(ms: u64);	Sleeps for ms milliseconds.
A1	wait(t: [thr]);	Waits for thread t to complete.
88	lock();	Locks the current thread to begin a critical section.
33	release();	Releases the critical section, begun with lock.

The term wait-pending is used to describe a running thread that is being waited by another. Those threads can't be abruptly terminated and doing so results in undefined behaviour.

The term join indicates the termination of the current thread, while wait will be the designated function that waits for a thread to end.

Fast conversion functions

HEX	Prototype	Description
CA	u2s(u: u64): [chr];	Converts u64 i to string ([chr]).
CB	i2s(i: i64): [chr];	Converts i64 i to string ([chr]).
CC	s2u(s: [chr]): u64;	Converts string s ([chr]) to u64.
CD	s2i(s: [chr]): i64;	Converts string s ([chr]) to i64.
CE	f2s(f: f64): [chr];	Converts f64 f to string ([chr]).
CF	s2f(s: [chr]): f64;	Converts string s ([chr]) to f64.

The strings are always null terminated heap arrays of characters [chr]. The conversions from string to [u64, i64, f64] might fail and set the exception flag before returning without result.

Misc functions

HEX	Prototype	Description
DE	debug()	Prints the stack and the call frame to stdout.
EC	exit(c: u32)	Exits with code c.
71	time(): u64	Returns the current unix timestamp.
5E	seed(s: u64)	Sets the seed s for the next random generation.
3A	random(): u64	Generates a pseudo random number using a pcg.

Compilation, usage and testing

To compile assembly files install customasm. Include the file ice.asm in your code and compile it with customasm. Then compile the virtualice binary with ninja and run it.

⚠️ *Warning: The test files in /tests/ might be referring to an old version.

cd tests
customasm test.asm -f binary -o test.ice

cd ..
ninja

./virtualice tests/test.ice