PCIT-CPP

Panther Compiler Infrastructure and Toolchain, and the home of the Panther programming language. PCIT (pronounced "P-Kit") relies on the LLVM-Project, but that is not guaranteed forever. It is written entirely in C++, but a self-hosted version (written entirely in Panther) is planned.

Note

This is in the very early stages and as such is not usable yet. If you really want to try it now (without any documentation), you can modify pthr/main.cpp.

Tools

All tools can be used as stand-alone programs or as libraries.

Panther / pthr

Statically typed, compiled, high-performance, general-purpose programming language. A few goals of the language:

• Zero-cost abstractions
• Give the compiler knowledge of common patterns to allow it to help you write fast code, easier
• Powerful generics without needing to be an expert
• Allow as much compile-time computation as possible
• Fast compile times
• Build system for Panther in Panther
• Nice / helpful error messages
• Seamless interop with C and C++ without compromising on language design

IR

[Unnamed for now]. Compiler IR / optimizing back-end.

Linker

[Unnamed for now]. Linker that aims to make use between platforms (including cross-compilation) as seamless as possible.

Other compilers

Will also be able to compile C and hopefully C++ code. The main intent is for this to allow seamless interoperability with Panther, but these frontends will be able to be used stand-alone.

Building:

The build instructions can be found here.

Versioning:

The versioning scheme is as follows: [major].[release].[minor].[patch]. A "release" is the number of the release within the major version. This is zero-indexed if major is >= 1, otherwise it is one-indexed. Any versions within releases is not expected to necessarily be bug-free and stable. For brevity, the minor and patch may be left off (making it just [major].[release])

Expected Timeline:

• 0.1: (the first release)
  • Panther/pthr working enough to give to testers. Some major features will be missing. Some documentation will exist
  • Bare-bones version of the Linker library will also be working
• 0.2:
  • Bare-bones version of the IR library
  • Some missing features of Panther added
• in-between:
  • TBD
• 1.0:
  • The project is "released" and is production ready

Updates:

List of changes for each version can be found here. Note: very small changes may not be listed.

Panther Syntax

Here's a quick taste of the syntax of the Panther programming language. All of the following currently compiles (as of v0.0.34.0). If you want a peek at all currently supported features, maybe look at the change log. Please keep in mind that any and all syntax may change in the future.

// importing a file
def some_file = @import("some_file.pthr");

// function declaration (parameter `num` is implicity `read`)
func set_num = (num: UI8, num_to_change: UI8 mut) -> Void {
	num_to_change = copy num;
}

// templated function
func just_return_num = <{T: Type}> (num: T) -> T {
	func sub_func = (sub_num: T) -> T {
		return (move sub_num);
	}

	return sub_func(num);
}

// entry function (notice the name doesn't matter, but it has the attribute `#entry`)
func asdf = () #entry -> UI8 {
	var foo = just_return_num<{UI8}>(some_file.get_UI8_12());

	var bar: UI8 = uninit;
	set_num(foo, bar);

	return (move bar);
}