Journal – Page 2

For debugging the Pony compiler on Windows I use the following configuration files in the .vscode directory of my cloned ponyc git repo.

I also use the Pony Syntax Colorizer for syntax highlighting in Pony programs.

Updated: updated tasks.json for more recent VSCode versions.

c_cpp_properties.json:

{
  "configurations": [
    {
      "name": "Win32",
      "includePath": [
        "${workspaceRoot}/build/debug-llvm-3.9.1/ThirdParty/lib/LLVM-3.9.1-Debug/include",
        "C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio/2017/Community/VC/Tools/MSVC/14.11.25503/include",
        "C:/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits/10/Include/10.0.16299.0/shared",
        "C:/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits/10/Include/10.0.16299.0/ucrt",
        "C:/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits/10/Include/10.0.16299.0/um",
        "${workspaceRoot}/src/common",
        "${workspaceRoot}/src/libponyrt"
      ],
      "defines": [
        "PONY_VERSION=\"0.20.0\"",
        "LLVM_VERSION=\"3.9.1\"",
        "PONY_COMPILER=\"msvc\"",
        "PONY_BUILD_CONFIG=\"debug\"",
        "PONY_LLVM=391",
        "DEBUG",
        "_DEBUG",
        "_MSC_VER=1900",
        "UNICODE"
      ],
      "browse": {
        "limitSymbolsToIncludedHeaders": true,
        "databaseFilename": "C:/Users/Gordon/Dev/pony/ponyc/.vscode/browse/.browse.VC.db",
        "path": [
          "${workspaceRoot}/build/debug-llvm-3.9.1/ThirdParty/lib/LLVM-3.9.1-Debug/include",
          "C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio/2017/Community/VC/Tools/MSVC/14.11.25503/include",
          "C:/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits/10/Include/10.0.16299.0/shared",
          "C:/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits/10/Include/10.0.16299.0/ucrt",
          "C:/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits/10/Include/10.0.16299.0/um",
          "${workspaceRoot}/src"
        ]
      },
      "intelliSenseMode": "msvc-x64"
    }
  ],
  "version": 3
}

Obviously the version numbers and directory names for LLVM, Visual Studio and Windows SDK will need to be updated for your particular installation.

launch.json

{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "name": "Launch Ponyc",
      "type": "cppvsdbg",
      "request": "launch",
      "program": "${workspaceRoot}/build/debug-llvm-3.9.1/ponyc.exe",
      "args": [ ],
      "stopAtEntry": false,
      "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
      "environment": [
        {
          "name": "PONYPATH",
          "value": ""
        }
      ],
      "externalConsole": false
    },
    {
      "name": "Attach to Process",
      "type": "cppvsdbg",
      "request": "attach",
      "processId": "${command:pickProcess}"
    }
  ]
}

This provides two launch tasks, one for the Pony compiler, and one for attaching to a running program.

tasks.json

{
  "version": "2.0.0",
  "tasks": [
    {
      "label": "distclean",
      "command": "${workspaceRoot}/make.bat",
      "args": [
        "distclean"
      ],
      "type": "shell",
      "group": "none",
      "problemMatcher": []
    },
    {
      "label": "configure",
      "command": "${workspaceRoot}/make.bat",
      "args": [
        "configure"
      ],
      "type": "shell",
      "group": "none",
      "problemMatcher": []
    },
    {
      "label": "clean",
      "command": "${workspaceRoot}/make.bat",
      "args": [
        "clean",
        "--config=debug"
      ],
      "type": "shell",
      "group": "none",
      "problemMatcher": []
    },
    {
      "label": "build",
      "command": "${workspaceRoot}/make.bat",
      "args": [
        "build",
        "--config=debug"
      ],
      "type": "shell",
      "group": {
        "kind": "build",
        "isDefault": true
      },
      "problemMatcher": "$msCompile"
    },
    {
      "label": "test",
      "command": "${workspaceRoot}/make.bat",
      "args": [
        "build",
        "test",
        "--config=debug"
      ],
      "type": "shell",
      "group": {
        "kind": "test",
        "isDefault": true
      },
      "problemMatcher": "$msCompile"
    }
  ]
}

This will provide tasks for building and testing ponyc in debug mode.

settings.json

{
  "files.associations": {
    "*.h": "cpp",
    "*.c": "cpp"
  }
}

Windows builds must use C++ for all source files.

I have recently released a PEG parser library for the Pony programming language: Kiuatan (“horse” or “pony” in Chinook Jargon). This is mostly a learning exercise for me. It doesn’t make use of any of Pony’s actor model functionality.

Kiuatan (“horse” or “pony” in Chinook Jargon) is a library for building and running parsers in the Pony programming language.

Kiuatan uses Parsing Expression Grammar semantics, which means:

Choices are ordered, i.e. the parser will always try to parse alternatives in the order they are declared.

Parsers do not backtrack from successful choices.

Sequences are greedy, i.e. the parser will not backtrack from the end of a sequence.

Kiuatan parsers are “packrat” parsers; they memoize intermediate results, resulting in linear-time parsing.

Parsers use Mederios et al’s algorithm to handle unlimited left-recursion.

Category: Journal

Configuration for Debugging the Pony Compiler in Visual Studio Code on Windows

PEG Parser Library for Pony

Legi Plu

Esperanta Legado