- a syntax to access specific bits in a variable, to avoid manually shifts&ands, something like variable[4:8] ? (or something else this may be too similar to regular array indexing)
- something to reduce the need to use fully qualified names all the time. 'with' ? Or 'using <prefix>'?
- Libraries: improve ability to create library files in prog8; for instance there's still stuff injected into the start of the start() routine AND there is separate setup logic going on before calling it.
Make up our mind! Maybe all setup does need to be put into start() ? because the program cannot function correctly when the variables aren't initialized properly bss is not cleared etc. etc.
Add a -library $xxxx command line option to preselect every setting that is required to make a library at $xxxx rather than a normal loadable and runnable program?
Need to add some way to generate a stable jump table at a given address.
- Improve register load order in subroutine call args assignments:
in certain situations, the "wrong" order of evaluation of function call arguments is done which results
in overwriting registers that already got their value, which requires a lot of stack juggling (especially on plain 6502 cpu!)
Maybe this routine can be made more intelligent. See usesOtherRegistersWhileEvaluating() and argumentsViaRegisters().
- Improve the SublimeText syntax file for prog8, you can also install this for 'bat': https://github.com/sharkdp/bat?tab=readme-ov-file#adding-new-syntaxes--language-definitions
- Does it make codegen easier if everything is an expression? Start with the PtProgram ast , get rid of the statements there -> expressions that have Void data type
Perhaps replace all uses of .proc/.pend/.endproc by .block/.bend will fix that with a compiler flag?
But all library code written in asm uses .proc already..... (textual search/replace when writing the actual asm?)
Once new codegen is written that is based on the IR, this point is mostly moot anyway as that will have its own dead code removal on the IR level.
- Zig-like try-based error handling where the V flag could indicate error condition? and/or BRK to jump into monitor on failure? (has to set BRK vector for that) But the V flag is also set on certain normal instructions
- implement missing operators in AssignmentGen (array shifts etc)
- support %align on code chunks
- fix call() return value handling
- fix float register parameters (FAC1,FAC2) for extsubs, search for TODO("floating point register parameters not supported")
- proper code gen for the CALLI instruction and that it (optionally) returns a word value that needs to be assigned to a reg
- idea: (but LLVM IR simply keeps the variables, so not a good idea then?...): replace all scalar variables by an allocated register. Keep a table of the variable to register mapping (including the datatype)
global initialization values are simply a list of LOAD instructions.
Variables replaced include all subroutine parameters! So the only variables that remain as variables are arrays and strings.
- add more optimizations in IRPeepholeOptimizer
- the @split arrays are currently also split in _lsb/_msb arrays in the IR, and operations take multiple (byte) instructions that may lead to verbose and slow operation and machine code generation down the line.
maybe another representation is needed once actual codegeneration is done from the IR...?
- split word arrays, both _msb and _lsb arrays are tagged with an alignment. This is not what's intended; only the one put in memory first should be aligned (the other one should follow straight after it)
- getting it in shape for code generation...
- make optimizeBitTest work for IR too to use the BIT instruction?
- make sure that a 6502 codegen based off the IR, still generates BIT instructions when testing bit 7 or 6 of a byte var.
- Optimize the IfExpression code generation to be more like regular if-else code. (both 6502 and IR) search for "TODO don't store condition as expression"
- declare struct *type*, or directly declare the variable itself? Problem with the latter is: you cannot easily define multiple variables of the same struct type.
