How to create a .Net programming language? [closed]

Answer 1

A great example for integrating your own language into Visual Studio is the Lua Language Support project.

Answer 2

or is there a higher level of abstraction?

Just to be complete, you could output C# or VB.NET. Both compilers are part of the runtime.

Disputable if that would be a 'real' compiler though.

Answer 3

You'll want to take a look at the Microsoft Research Common Compiler Infrastructure (CCI) project. It provides everything you need to generate the metadata and the MSIL for an assembly. And the debugging .pdb file, rather important to get your language going.

There's a sister project, CCI Code Model and AST, that might be useful as well, depends how far along you got.

Answer 4

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but after I had a Question on SO i've created a .net Compiler for Brainf**k as an excersize (Part 6 contains the actual Compiler Source Code and is also on GitHub)

Essentially, the actual Compiler can be written in any .net Language and use the System.Reflection.Emit namespace to create assemblies, classes, methods etc. and emit IL into them.

The actual work of creating a new language obviously involves writing a parser/lexer/analyzer/whatever that can dissect your program into classes and "feed" your compiler - sorry, I have no experience in that, but check this list of resources on how to write a compiler.

You do want to read ECMA-335 to learn how the CLI works: What datatypes it supports and what commands it actually does.

Answer 5

There is a LOLCode compiler built in C# that might be a good starting point.

http://code.google.com/p/lolcode-dot-net/

As for implementing in Visual Studio, there is an open source view engine called Spark (http://www.sparkviewengine.com/) that did some work with getting intellisense to work. The context is different, but the lesson is the same, it's hard, and it's not a very well documented process.

Answer 6

Your compiler could output either CIL assembly language, or an assembly (.dll / .exe) file.

Take a look at the CLI (Common Language Infrastructure) standard, which describes the CLI (the target platform), the CIL (assembly language), and the binary file format of assemblies.

By the way, the standard is also available as a book with annotations.