Prog8 language and compiler topic

desertfish · Post by **desertfish** » Sat Nov 06, 2021 11:13 pm

Version 7.2 of the Prog8 compiler has just been released https://github.com/irmen/prog8/releases/tag/v7.2

Documentation is here https://prog8.readthedocs.io

This is mainly a version with performance optimizations.

Various parts of the code generator now create faster code, and sometimes also smaller code.

Depending on your source code, you can observe pretty significant gains in resulting program size (tens to hundreds of bytes smaller).

Other fixes:

PETSCII block drawing character mapping was updated to now correctly separate certain box line characters

Fixed type casting errors related to certain const propagation

str is now allowed as a parameter type in subroutines (it is passed by reference/address)

compiler no longer crashes when an input file doesn't exist

gradle builds now automatically run installDist task after build

updated to Kotlin 1.5.31

borgar · Post by **borgar** » Mon Nov 08, 2021 10:39 am

Very nice. My only currently working project (https://www.commanderx16.com/forum/index.php?/files/file/182-petaxian/) still compiles and run fine though there is no reason to rebuild and upload yet.

I have made the Git project public (https://github.com/cyborgar/Petaxian) in case anyone want to look at a bit larger Prog8 code example compared to the mostly smaller examples coming with the compiler. I have organized code in multiple files/modules. Though there is no code protection this does require explicit references when crossing modules and that helps a lot with visibility.

I have (slowly) started on another clone game (this one is going to copy liberally from Llamasoft's Gridrunner) but I've just gotten started. I'm going to focus on getting it to work on C64 before I'll probably port it to CX16.

desertfish · Post by **desertfish** » Wed Nov 10, 2021 9:48 pm

For comparison

Petaxian compiled with prog8 7.0: 19639 bytes

Petaxian compiled with prog8 7.2: 19405 bytes

234 bytes of overhead removed

update: Petaxian compiled with prog8 7.3: 19258 bytes

another 147 bytes of overhead removed by producing more efficient code

desertfish · Post by **desertfish** » Sun Nov 14, 2021 10:26 pm

Version 7.3 has just been released https://github.com/irmen/prog8/releases/tag/v7.3

Docs are here as always https://prog8.readthedocs.io/

More improvements in generated code efficiency, resulting in smaller code that runs faster. (see the post above this one for an indication of savings you might see)

Also added a few small new quality of life features.

fixed operator not priority: it is now higher prio than and/or/xor !

fixed division of signed bytes by 2

added new cos and sin builtin functions cosr8 sinr8 cosr16 sinr16, and also their unsigned valued siblings. These make it easier to deal with arcs of degrees 0-359 rather than 0-255 of the existing trig functions.

added signed versions of the cx16 virtual registers: r0s - r15s including the L and H byte variants of them.

less temporary variables generated and used

more optimizations to expression evaluations

compiler no longer uses cx16 R15 virtual register as tempvar

unit tests now use KoTest as test framework.

desertfish · Post by **desertfish** » Tue Nov 16, 2021 11:16 pm

While I was boasting about the reduced code size of the compiled Petaxian game, I now discovered that a bug has crept in in 7.3 that now makes the sound glitch out on the C64 build of Petaxian. I will investigate and fix this soon, hopefully.

Weirdly enough the game still works fine with sound on the X16 build.

update: found the bug and fixed it for 7.4, there was a new optimizer added that was too aggressive in removing double-stores

desertfish · Post by **desertfish** » Tue Nov 30, 2021 10:00 pm

Version 7.4.1 has been released https://github.com/irmen/prog8/releases/tag/v7.4.1

Documentation as always here https://prog8.readthedocs.io

Even more improvements in generated code efficiency, resulting in smaller code that runs faster.

improved code generation.

optimizer is now smarter about accesses to memory mapped IO that shouldn't be optimized away

performance improvements in the compiler itself, updated to Kotlin 1.6

fixed some illegal instructions in the conv module on c64 target

other bugfixes

documentation improvements

desertfish · Post by **desertfish** » Fri Dec 10, 2021 2:57 pm

Version 7.5 has been released https://github.com/irmen/prog8/releases/tag/v7.5

Documentation as always here: https://prog8.readthedocs.io/

Some new features and more optimizations have been added.

added diskio.load_raw() to load headerless files

added cx16diskio with load() and load_raw() that are HIRAM bank-aware

added cx16.getrambank() / getrombank()

fix grammar problem: \x and \u escape sequences now work properly in character literals

fix grammar problem: scoped variables such as cx16.r0-r15 are now allowed as loop variable in for loops

cx16.r0-r15 are now properly considered to be already in zeropage on X16 if you use them as pointers

allow using ubyte[] as subroutine parameter type

some other bugfixes and optimizations

yock1960 · Post by **yock1960** » Sun Dec 12, 2021 1:20 am

Is anyone using this on a Windows machine? I've tried two different systems now, Win10 & Win7, started with Java 11, moved to the open source Java and all I get are can't access jar file errors. The entire reason that I like working with 'old' 8bit systems is simplicity!

borgar · Post by **borgar** » Sun Dec 12, 2021 9:58 am

Sure. I use this on WIndows 7 (old stationary pc) and Windows 10 (laptop). Never had any problems getting this to work.

BTW, I have just set up a few small bat scripts to compile and/or run stuff. This on I use just to build the Petaxian code, I have variants that can take program name as argument, build for C64 instead for XC16 etc.

SET PATH=%PATH%;..

SET jar=..\prog8compiler-7.5-all.jar

IF %computername%==BIFROST (

SET javap="C:\Program Files\OpenJDK\jdk-11.0.9.1-hotspot\bin\java.exe"

) ELSE (

SET javap="C:\Program Files\OpenJDK\jdk-11.0.8.10-hotspot\bin\java.exe"

)

%javap% -jar %jar% -srcdirs cx16 -target cx16 petaxian.p8

..\cmdrx16v38\x16emu.exe -joy1 SNES -run -prg petaxian.prg

yock1960 · Post by **yock1960** » Sun Dec 12, 2021 2:06 pm

On 12/12/2021 at 4:58 AM, borgar said:

Sure. I use this on WIndows 7 (old stationary pc) and Windows 10 (laptop). Never had any problems getting this to work.

BTW, I have just set up a few small bat scripts to compile and/or run stuff. This on I use just to build the Petaxian code, I have variants that can take program name as argument, build for C64 instead for XC16 etc.

SET PATH=%PATH%;..

SET jar=..\prog8compiler-7.5-all.jar

IF %computername%==BIFROST (

SET javap="C:\Program Files\OpenJDK\jdk-11.0.9.1-hotspot\bin\java.exe"

) ELSE (

SET javap="C:\Program Files\OpenJDK\jdk-11.0.8.10-hotspot\bin\java.exe"

)

%javap% -jar %jar% -srcdirs cx16 -target cx16 petaxian.p8

..\cmdrx16v38\x16emu.exe -joy1 SNES -run -prg petaxian.prg

Thanks Borgar! I thought about this, but I thought that after 60+ years of computing, we shouldn't have to do this type of thing anymore! But I guess that's just grumpy old me! ?