CREATOR's generic assembler

• Configurable ISA through an architecture configuration file.
• Constant expression support, allowing arithmetic (+, -, *, /, %, <<, >>), bitwise (|, &, ^, ~), logical (&&, ||), and comparison (<, <=, ==, !=, >=, >) operators.
• Labels as values in expressions.
• Custom expression modifier support (%<name>(<expression>)).
• User-friendly error messages.
• Wasm support with JavaScript bindings.

The only requirement is the rust toolchain, which can be installed through rustup.

The assembler can be built from source using cargo build --release, which will place the binary in ./target/release/creator-assembler. The --release flag can be omitted to generate debug binaries. Additionally, cargo run --release -- [<ARGS>] can be used as a shortcut to build and run the binary. Running the application without arguments provides a short description of the application and subcommands, and using creator-assembler help <command> provides a description and usage instructions for each command.

The assembler currently supports 3 modes of execution:

• Print architecture specification schema to stdout: creator-assembler schema
• Validate architecture specification file: creator-assembler validate <architecture.json>
• Compile assembly input and print the result to stdout: creator-assembler compile <architecture.json> <assembly.s>
  • The -v/--verbose flag can be used to also print the parsed AST

JS bindings are supported through wasm. In order to build them, the code must first be compiled into a wasm package with wasm-pack. This can be done using wasm-pack build --target [web|nodejs], where the target depends on if the code is being compiled for NodeJS or a browser. The flag --dev can be added to generate a debug module with a shorter compile time by omitting optimizations. Alternatively, the provided build script (./build.sh) can be used to build both targets.

After the package has been built, it can be loaded by requiring the generated .js file as a module. The js_example/ directory contains a working example of how to use the generated package, both for the web and Node.js:

• index.html: entry point for the web example. Can't be directly opened in a browser due to CORS limitations. Python can be used to start a development server with python3 -m http.server 8080 which allows loading the page at localhost:8080/js_example.
• web.js: main module for the web example, shows how to load the package in the web
• node.js: main module for the Node.js example, shows how to load the package in Node.js
• assembler.mjs: module responsible for interaction with the package, shows how to use the provided API