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Binary-Translator

Translator for my language backend that creates x86_64 code.

The language itself is one of my previous projects. The grammar is based on My Favourite Anecdotes.

Usage

Use $ make lang_no_misc to compile version without miscellanious additions (producing tree image and saving tree to file).

Flags

  1. -i specify input file
  2. -o specify output file
  3. -S to compile into NASM code
  4. -B to compile into an x86_64 ELF executable
  5. if no flags other than -i and -o used, the code is compiled into my Assembly language.

Current version does not support -i when using -B. ELF output will always be called anek.exe.

Grammar

Expand me 
G     ::= Купил мужик шляпу. OP+ А она ему как раз, господа.

OP    ::= Dec || Func || IF || While || Call || Assn || Ret || Print.

Dec   ::= "ID [всегда N]?" - подумал Штирлиц N раз. // ID is var name. Всегда N is equivalent to const ID = N. N раз is array of length N.

Func  ::= Господа, а не сыграть ли нам в новую игру.
          ID называется. Правила очень просты: ID+. // First ID is function name. Then parameters
          Алга
              OP*
          Развернулся и алга.

IF    ::= Кто прочитал E тот сдохнет. // Equivalent to if (E)
              OP*
          Ставь лайк
              OP*
          и можешь считать, что не читал.

While ::= В дверь постучали E раз. // Equivalent to while (E)
              OP*
          Дверь отвалилась.

Call  ::= Анекдот: Заходят как-то в бар ID+. // Function parameters
          А бармен им говорит: ID. // Function name

Assn  ::= Этим ID был E.

Ret   ::= Козырная E, господа.

E     ::= Cmp ([|| &&] Cmp)*

Cmp   ::= Sum ([> < <= >= == !=] Sum)*

Sum   ::= T ([+-] T)*

T     ::= Pow ([дофига /] Pow)*

Pow   ::= Neg (^ Neg)*

Neg   ::= Нифига? P

P     ::= Биба E Боба || Call || Scan || N

Scan  ::= ввод пользователем числового значения с клавиатуры

Print ::= Голос, ID!

ID    ::= [a-zA-Z]+

Implementation details

ELF-file generation

The program generates the most basic executable ELF-file.

ELF-file generation is implemented in ELF_Gen.cpp and ToBIN.cpp.

Virtual load address will always be equal to <0x08048080>.

Code length should not exceed $PAGESIZE environment variable value. In this paper we consider $PAGESIZE to be equal to 0x1000.

These limitations will be fixed in the future patches.

File structure

Table of ELF-file contents

Section Offset Length Content
ELF header 0 0x40 Basic ELF-header.
Program header 0x40 0x38 Basic program header. The only part that is changed in template is the executable code length.
Code 0x78 [0x1AA; 0x11AA] Executable code. Minimum size is 0x1AA bytes due to precompiled PRINT, SCAN and POW functions being forcefully pasted into file.

Code structure

Table of Code contents. Offsets are relative to the executable code section start (0x78).

Section Offset Length Content
pusha 0 0x0A Push all calee-saved registers
call main 0x0A 0x05 Call main() opcode
popa 0x0F 0x0A Pop all saved registers
exit(rax) 0x19 0x0A Exit the program, returning the value stored in rax
stdlib: IN 0x23 0x5F Precompiled implementation of IN function
stdlib: OUT 0x82 0xD0 Precompiled implementation of OUT function
stdlib: POW 0x152 0x58 Precompiled implementation of POW function
Program code 0x1AA [0; 0x1000] Actual program code

Code generation

Program text written in the anek language is translated into a binary tree.

Example

Binary code is generated by traversing the tree.

Example 
static int PrintID (TNode *node)
{
    // Print to Listing file
    
    PrintA ("; %.*s", LEN, DECL);

    // Run translation recursively from left and right children

    if (LEFT)
    {
        $ int lErr = NodeToAsm (LEFT);
        if (lErr) return lErr;
    }

    if (RIGHT)
    {
        $ int rErr = NodeToAsm (RIGHT);
        if (rErr) return rErr;
    }

    return 0;
}

Command generation details

For each command used in the resulting program there's a defined INSTRUCTION structure in file include/NASM_BIN_TABLE.h.

The structure contains opcode itself, opcode length, argument and argument length.

For example:

//      MNEMO                                     OPCODE     LEN  ARG_LEN   ARG
#define SUB_RSP_1_BYTE(arg_)       (INSTRUCTION { 0xEC8348,    3,       1, arg_ })

This structure is then pasted into opcodes buffer.

We will now give detailed explanations of each node type translation

General

  • All variables are stored in stack. Space in stack between RBP and RSP is the stack frame.

  • All operation results are stored in RAX.

  • All arithmetic operations support pseudo-float calculations. We shift each integer value 9 bits left. This gives us precision of around 0.002.

  • All integers are signed.

Variables

The language standard we use does not require variable declaration before usage. However, in the language front-end implementation we treat undeclared variables as an error.

This results in a variable being initialized with zero, whenever it is seen for the first time in language tree.

When a variable is used in code, it's value is moved to RAX register.

CALL and RET

CALL

To call a function, we do the following steps:

  1. Put call arguments to stack. Contrast to FASTCALL and CDECL calling conventions, we push argument values relative to RSP with a negative offset.
Detailed stack

Let's say, we want to call a function int func (int first, int second). It has 2 parameters.

This is how stack looks like before calling:

Offset 0x0000 -0x0008 -0x0010 -0x0018 -0x0020 -0x0028 -0x0030 -0x0038
Stack example 0x1234 0x0042 0x00CE 0x0000 0x0000 0x0000 0x0000 0x0000
Explanation Old RBP value Variable A Variable B Garbage Garbage Garbage Garbage Garbage
Registers RBP RSP

We then call func (A, B) in our language.

Function parameters will be placed into [RSP - 0x10 - 0x8 * N], where N is the parameter number.

After all arguments are passed, the stack would look like this:

Offset 0x0000 -0x0008 -0x0010 -0x0018 -0x0020 -0x0028 -0x0030 -0x0038
Stack example 0x1234 0x0042 0x00CE 0x0000 0x0000 0x0042 0x00CE 0x0000
Explanation Old RBP value Variable A Variable B Garbage Garbage Parameter = Variable A Parameter = Variable B Garbage
Registers RBP RSP RSP - 0x10 - 0x8 RSP - 0x10 - 0x10

  1. Call the function: RIP is pushed to stack.

  2. Create stack frame: RBP is pushed to stack and moved to the position of RSP.

Stack after call

When the called function execution is started, the stack looks like this:

Offset 0x0000 -0x0008 -0x0010 -0x0018 -0x0020 -0x0028 -0x0030 -0x0038
Stack example 0x1234 0x0042 0x00CE 0xC0DE 0x0000 0x0042 0x00CE 0x0000
Explanation Old RBP value Variable A Variable B Old RIP Old RBP value Parameter = Variable A Parameter = Variable B Garbage
Registers RBP,RSP RSP - 0x8 RSP - 0x10

This concludes the calling process.

RET

When returning from a function, all of the above actions are reverted:

  1. mov RSP, RBP

  2. pop RBP

  3. ret

Function declaration

Whenever a function is declared, a stack frame creation code is pasted. We then decrease RSP by 0x8 * N, where N - number of parameters this function has.

Then the function code is printed.

IN and OUT

IN

This function is responsible for reading an integer value from keyboard. Although all computations use pseudo-floats, there's currently no way to read a floating point value from keyboard.

The function is a part of my "stdlib" and is pasted into every file before the program code.

OUT

Prints a floating-point value to stdout. The string is generated separately for the integer and fractional parts of the value.

The function is a part of my "stdlib" and is pasted into every file before the program code.

IF and WHILE

Both nodes are processed almost identically, so we will give detailed info only on IF.

When the translator encounters an IF node, the following actions are done:

  1. Translate the condition node. It's value will be stored in RAX

  2. test RAX

  3. Print the conditional jump opcode (1 byte). Save current offset in opcodes buffer to variable (let's call it JmpArgPos). Print dummy argument (4 bytes with value 0).

  4. Translate the else branch

  5. Save current position for future patching an uncoditional jump to the end of if statement.

  6. Calculate the offset of current position from the conditional jump: OFFS = (Curr_offs - JmpArgPos - ArgLen)

  7. Patch the argument of the conditional jump, so it jumps at the start of the if true branch

  8. Translate the if true branch

  9. Patch the unconditional jump after the else branch

Operators

Operators in our language can be split into several classes:

We will now give explanations for each class

Assignment

To assign a value to a variable, we first translate the entire rValue node. It's result will be stored in RAX. We then mov [RBP - OFFS], RAX, where OFFS is the variable offset in stack.

For example, the following code:

"Количество" - подумал Штирлиц 1 раз.
Этим Количество был 2.

Assigns a constant value of 2 to the variable Количество.

It will be translated into the following assembly code:

mov rax, 1024       ; const value << 9
mov [rbp - 24], rax ; Количество = rax

Arithmetics

WIP

Comparisons

WIP

Negation

WIP

Performance test

The main goal of this project was to increase the execution speed of programs written in our language.

To check the effect, we have created a simple program that calculates the factorial of 12.

We then run the program 100 000 times and check time of execution using Linux time tool.

The ELF execution time is then compared with the same task performance on our Processor.

Architecture Exec. Time, s
Processor 5.20 ± 0.10
x86_64 0.011 ± 0.001

Overall speedup is approximately 450x

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to Varnike, EnikAs and deGekata for helping with opcode and ELF generation.

Additional thanks to Rustam for reading this README.