Tiny Compiler (Go)

A small educational compiler written in Go.

It reads a tiny Lisp-like input and converts it into a JavaScript-like function call output.

Example:

Input: (mix 4 (blend 9 1))

Output: mix(4, blend(9, 1));

Project Structure

• compiler.go: Main compiler implementation and demo run in main()
• compiler_test.go: Unit tests and benchmark for tokenizer/parser/compiler

Compiler Workflow

The compiler runs in four steps:

1. Tokenizer

• Converts source text into tokens such as paren, name, and number.

2. Parser

• Converts tokens into an AST (abstract syntax tree).

3. Transformer

• Converts the first AST shape into a JS-style AST shape.

4. Code Generator

• Converts the transformed AST into the final output string.

How To Run

From this folder:

go run compiler.go

How To Test

Run all tests with:

go test ./...

What To Learn From This Project

• Basic compiler pipeline design
• Recursive descent style parsing
• AST traversal and transformation
• Code generation from structured trees

Possible Next Improvements

• Add string literals
• Add better parser error messages for missing parentheses
• Add support for uppercase letters in identifiers