Some questions and suggestions

[electric-socket]

I've been fascinated by Pascal compiler sources literally for decades (I started back around 1979). So when I found yours - among a few others - I was quite excited and I am quite impressed. I would like to ask a few questions.

1. The fact you as a single author constructed this application as a 45,000+ line, over a megabyte single program file (not counting include files) is amazing. I've only seen that sort of thing in one place -the Oppolzer version of the New Stanford Pascal Compiler, https://github.com/StanfordPascal/Pascal which is about 25,000 lines (and only generates P-Code, not actual machine code). It also handles a much smaller functionality of a regular or full-service compiler (like Free Pascal, Delphi, or Gnu Pascal).
2. I like the fact that your compiler is written using more-or-less Standard or Extended Pascal, and not using Object Pascal. Is it by any chance you want it to be able to be self-hosting (able to compile itself)?
3. Do you think it would be difficult to have it compile code for a different processor?
4. I'd like to offer a couple of suggestions on other places to get ideas.
5. PPro, https://github.com/DosWorld/ppro an object-oriented compiler attempting to do something similar to what you're doing, but not as a single application file. I do like the way he elegantly handles use of compiler directives and nested comments. I wish I'd thought of it.
6. My own app, https://github.com/electric-socket/xdpw , a fork of Vasily Tereskov's XDPascal for Wundows, which is self-hosting (it will compile itself) and even builds applications directly, producing an .EXE file. Since it generates an executable directly, you can see how it does it. I’ve made a few changes and some fixes, but I had to set it aside to work on a different program.
7. Fact is, where your compiler is at is the direction I wanted to go with XDPascal, and having seen what you and PPeo (and others) have done, I think I'm going to look into them and see if I can learn something.

Thank you for your attention.
Paul

"Understanding of things by me is only made possible by people — who read my comments — like you."

Thank you.
Paul Robinson [email protected]