Difference between revisions of "Ministg"

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Ministg follows the rules in the paper very closely, to the point that each evaluation rule in the paper corresponds to an equation in the interpreter. This makes is easy to check that the interpreter follows the rules properly, and it also makes is easy to understand how new rules can be added, and what effect they might have.
 
Ministg follows the rules in the paper very closely, to the point that each evaluation rule in the paper corresponds to an equation in the interpreter. This makes is easy to check that the interpreter follows the rules properly, and it also makes is easy to understand how new rules can be added, and what effect they might have.
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The following is a summary of the main features of Ministg; they are discussed in more detail below:
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* Optional tracing of program execution, rendered in HTML.
  +
* Optional garbage collection.
  +
* Optional standard Prelude of useful functions (much like Haskell).
  +
* Optional call-stack tracing and stack dumping on errors.
  +
* Program annotations for call-stack tracing, similar to GHC's scc annotation for cost centre stacks.
  +
* Optional automatic call-stack annoation of top-level declarations in the program, similar to GHC's --auto-all option for profiling.
   
 
One of the most useful features of Ministg is its ability to trace the steps of program execution. If tracing is enabled, Ministg will save each step of execution to a HTML file. Each such file contains the entire state of the STG machine at that point in the computation: namely the code, stack and heap. An example trace is shown here: [http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~bjpop/trace/step0.html]. The files are linked together allowing you to step forwards and backwards through the execution.
 
One of the most useful features of Ministg is its ability to trace the steps of program execution. If tracing is enabled, Ministg will save each step of execution to a HTML file. Each such file contains the entire state of the STG machine at that point in the computation: namely the code, stack and heap. An example trace is shown here: [http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~bjpop/trace/step0.html]. The files are linked together allowing you to step forwards and backwards through the execution.

Revision as of 14:08, 19 August 2009

Ministg

Ministg is an interpreter for a high-level, small-step, operational semantics for the STG machine. The STG machine is the abstract machine at the core of GHC. The operational semantics used in Ministg is taken from the paper Making a fast curry: push/enter vs. eval/apply for higher-order languages by Simon Marlow and Simon Peyton Jones.

Ministg follows the rules in the paper very closely, to the point that each evaluation rule in the paper corresponds to an equation in the interpreter. This makes is easy to check that the interpreter follows the rules properly, and it also makes is easy to understand how new rules can be added, and what effect they might have.

The following is a summary of the main features of Ministg; they are discussed in more detail below:

  • Optional tracing of program execution, rendered in HTML.
  • Optional garbage collection.
  • Optional standard Prelude of useful functions (much like Haskell).
  • Optional call-stack tracing and stack dumping on errors.
  • Program annotations for call-stack tracing, similar to GHC's scc annotation for cost centre stacks.
  • Optional automatic call-stack annoation of top-level declarations in the program, similar to GHC's --auto-all option for profiling.

One of the most useful features of Ministg is its ability to trace the steps of program execution. If tracing is enabled, Ministg will save each step of execution to a HTML file. Each such file contains the entire state of the STG machine at that point in the computation: namely the code, stack and heap. An example trace is shown here: [1]. The files are linked together allowing you to step forwards and backwards through the execution.