Contents

# Opal Compiler

Opal is a source to source compiler. It accepts ruby code as a string and
generates javascript code which can be run in any environment. Generated
code relies on the opal runtime which provides the class system and some
other runtime helpers.

## Compiler stages

The compiler can be broken down into 3 separate stages:

* lexing
* parsing
* code generation

### Lexer

The [opal lexer](../lib/opal/parser/lexer.rb) is implemented in pure ruby using
the `StringScanner` class from the opal stdlib. The source code is scanned
and tokens are then provided to the parser. This process simply converts
the ruby code given as a string, into a list of tokens representing the
parts of the ruby code.

### Parser

The [opal parser](../lib/opal/parser/grammar.y) is implemented using a standard
bison like syntax, but relies on `racc`, a ruby implementation of yacc/bison
which is again available in the standard library. The parser takes these tokens
generated by the lexer and builds a syntax tree representing the ruby code.
This syntax tree is represented by [sexps](../lib/opal/parser/sexp.rb). As
ruby is such a complex and dynamic language, there is a lot of interaction
between the parser and the lexer, namely through a preserved `lex_state`.

### Code generation

The [opal compiler](../lib/opal/compiler.rb) takes these sexps from the parser
and generates ruby code from them. Each type of sexp has [its own node type](../lib/opal/nodes/base.rb)
used to generate javascript. Each node creates an array of one or more
[fragments](../lib/opal/fragment.rb) which are the concatendated together to
form the final javascript. Fragments are used as they contain the generated
code as well as a reference back to the original sexp which is useful for
generating source maps afterwards.

Version data entries

4 entries across 4 versions & 1 rubygems

Version	Path
opal-0.5.5	doc/compiler.md
opal-0.5.4	doc/compiler.md
opal-0.5.2	doc/compiler.md
opal-0.5.0	doc/compiler.md