LoxScript is a bytecode compiler and virtual machine ("Gears") for Bob Nystrom's Lox language, both written in C#.
The LoxScript bytecode virtual machine is called Gears. Gears executes bytecode created by the LoxScript compiler. The output of Gears matches the reference "clox" virtual machine described in Chapters 14-30 of Bob's book Crafting Interpreters. However, the internal implementation of the virtual machine is different, and the bytecode generated by the Gears compiler will not run on clox.
Improvements over Lox/clox:
- Compiler can write bytecode to a binary file and load/run this at runtime.
- Native interfaces allow Lox files to interact with native C# functions and objects.
- Support for switch statement! This only took hours, and the code is horrifying.
Performance:
- Gears runs the reference 'fibonnaci' benchmark roughly 69x slower than native c# code.