Maximum Over Drive System - Lua Assembly Toolkit

Welp, I am in need of more posts before I can join the IRC apparently, so I will introduce you all to a project I'm working on

Since Lua is currently the fastest programming language for up-to-date NSpire calculators, I thought I would share this relevant project.
This really is for those who want to get the absolute most out of Lua. It's very impractical to write an entire program from Lua assembly, since the compiler does a decent job for most non-time-critical functions.

Lua is actually a semi-compiled language (at least that's what I'm going to call it).
It is compiled to bytecode, and than interpreted dynamically on a virtual machine.

You can execute Lua bytecode directly in Lua with the loadstring() function.

Code: Select All | Copy To Clipboard

1
2

loadstring("\27\76\117\97\81\0\1\4\4\4\8\0\56\0\0\0\64\67\58\47\85\115\101\114\115\47\74\97\115\111\110\47\68\111\99\117\109\101\110\116\115\47\80\114\111\103\114\97\109\109\105\110\103\47\76\117\97\47\77\79\68\83\47\116\101\115\116\46\108\117\97\0\13\0\0\0\13\0\0\0\0\0\0\2\1\0\0\0\30\0\128\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\1\0\0\0\13\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0")();

Now I'd go over the bytecode format, but you can learn all of that here
This document also includes all of the information on all of the instructions to the Lua VM.

Now, onto the project.
(In retrospect, the name I chose was rather silly, but meh, it applies)

Basically, it includes the following:

An assembler for a custom syntax of my own design (feature ridden)
Something I would call a Linker, that takes a table of all the relevant information, and compiles it into Lua bytecode
Soon to be a disassembler, which will turn a normal Lua function into Lua assembly.

You can find the repository here: https://github.com/NecroBumpist/MODS

So, time for "Hello World!" in Lua assembly

Code: Select All | Copy To Clipboard

local mods = require("MODS.Current.main"); 
local bytecode = mods.Assemble(
[[
; Hello_World.lasm
.options 0, 0, 0, 2        ; a directive, which sets some properties, the '2' meaning MaxStackSize

getglobal    0,    <'print'>        ; <> denotes a constant, i've yet to bother with a directive for doing constants
loadk        1,    <'Hello World!'> ; The LuaVM is register based, we put the function in one register, then arguments above it
call         0,    2,    1          ; now we call register 0, with (2-1) parameters, accepting (1-1) values back
return       0,    0                ; and now we return
]]);

loadstring(bytecode)() -- turns the bytecode into a function, then we call that function

>Hello World!

So, I'd like to hear what some of you Lua users who are looking for speed improvements think

I plan on updating the repository soon to include:

Write some proper documentation
Updates to the assembler to include NASM like Macros (debugging right now)

In ten or twenty minutes the repository should be much cleaner Wink

Comments, questions, or concerns ? Or Lua Assembly general thread.