References Needed for Implementing an Interpreter in C/C++

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Short answer:

The fundamental reading list for a lisp interpreter is SICP. I would not at all call it overkill, if you feel you are overqualified for the first parts of the book jump to chapter 4 and start interpreting away (although I feel this would be a loss since chapters 1-3 really are that good!).

Add LISP in Small Pieces (LISP from now on), chapters 1-3. Especially chapter 3 if you need to implement any non-trivial control forms.

See this post by Jens Axel Søgaard on a minimal self-hosting Scheme: http://www.scheme.dk/blog/2006/12/self-evaluating-evaluator.html .

A slightly longer answer:

It is hard to give advice without knowing what you require from your interpreter.

  • does it really really need to be an interpreter, or do you actually need to be able to execute lisp code?
  • does it need to be fast?
  • does it need standards compliance? Common Lisp? R5RS? R6RS? Any SFRIs you need?

If you need anything more fancy than a simple syntax tree walker I would strongly recommend embedding a fast scheme subsystem. Gambit scheme comes to mind: http://dynamo.iro.umontreal.ca/~gambit/wiki/index.php/Main_Page .

If that is not an option chapter 5 in SICP and chapters 5– in LISP target compilation for faster execution.

For faster interpretation I would take a look at the most recent JavaScript interpreters/compilers. There seem to be a lot of thought going into fast JavaScript execution, and you can probably learn from them. V8 cites two important papers: http://code.google.com/apis/v8/design.html and squirrelfish cites a couple: http://webkit.org/blog/189/announcing-squirrelfish/ .

There is also the canonical scheme papers: http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html for the RABBIT compiler.

If I engage in a bit of premature speculation, memory management might be the tough nut to crack. Nils M Holm has published a book “Scheme 9 from empty space” http://www.t3x.org/s9fes/ which includes a simple stop-the-world mark and sweep garbage collector. Source included.

John Rose (of newer JVM fame) has written a paper on integrating Scheme to C: http://library.readscheme.org/servlets/cite.ss?pattern=AcmDL-Ros-92 .

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