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M2BSK Modula-2 Bootstrap Kernel Project

Welcome to the Wiki of the M2BSK Modula-2 Bootstrap Kernel Project

Objective

The objective of this project is to develop a bootstrap compiler for the revised Modula-2 language described in

"Modula-2 Revision 2010, Language Report for the Bootstrap Kernel Subset (BSK)" (Kowarsch and Sutcliffe, July 2020).

Purpose

The purpose of the M2BSK compiler is to facilitate bootstrapping of a self-hosting compiler for Modula-2 R10.

Grammar

The grammar of the compiler is in the project repository

https://github.com/m2sf/m2bsk/blob/master/m2bsk-grammar.gll

For a graphical representation of the grammar, see section Syntax Diagrams.

Language Specification

An online version of the language specification is here:

https://github.com/m2sf/m2bsk/wiki/Language-Specification

The authoritative language specification (PDF) is available for download:

https://github.com/m2sf/PDFs/blob/master/M2BSK%20Language%20Description.pdf

Scope

The compiler supports the Bootstrap Kernel (BSK) subset of Modula-2 R10. It does not support earlier PIM or ISO dialects.

Targets

The compiler will generate classic Modula-2 sources that can be compiled with any Modula-2 compiler that meets the prerequisites for compiling M2BSK itself. An LLVM backend will be added later to generate LLVM IR.

License

M2BSK is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) both v.2.1 and v.3.

Prerequisites

The compiler is written in a subset of the third and fourth editions of Niklaus Wirth's "Programming in Modula-2" that represents an intersection with ISO Modula-2 (IS 10514-1). Therefore any Modula-2 compiler that supports PIM3, PIM4 or ISO Modula-2 should be able to compile the sources.

The following libraries from Wirth's "Programming in Modula-2" are required.

• Storage
• Terminal
• FileSystem

These libraries should be part of any PIM Modula-2 compiler's library. For use with ISO Modula-2 compilers, M2BSK provides shim libraries for adaptation to ISO Modula-2 libraries.

There are no dependencies on any third party libraries.

OS support

M2BSK will run on any operating system with target support by the host-compiler.

Collaboration

If you would like to contribute to the project, please get in touch by email

trijezdci (gmail)

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