213 lines
11 KiB
Markdown
213 lines
11 KiB
Markdown
# Architecture
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How gasm-devkit is put together and why.
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## Design goals
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1. **A real AST, not a grammar hack.** The linter, analyser, assembler and
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language server all need to *reason* about assembly — not just colour it.
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So the centre of the toolkit is a hand-written lexer and a parser that
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produce a typed AST with source positions on every node.
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2. **Architecture as data, not code.** Per-architecture differences (amd64,
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arm64, riscv64, loong64) live in register and instruction *tables* (`arch`),
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never in `if arch == …` branches scattered through the logic. The
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instruction tables are generated from the Go toolchain's own assembler
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source (`just gen`), so adding or refreshing an architecture is a data
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operation, not a coding one.
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3. **Open integration surface.** Everything the toolkit can do is reachable
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through two vendor-neutral interfaces: a CLI and an LSP server. No editor
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owns the toolkit; the toolkit is offered to editors on standard terms.
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## Pipeline
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```mermaid
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graph TD
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SRC["source .s"] --> LEX["lexer<br/>token stream"]
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LEX --> PAR["parser<br/>AST + diagnostics"]
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LEX --> FMT["format<br/>re-space tokens"]
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PAR --> LINT["lint<br/>static checks"]
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PAR --> LSP["lsp server"]
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LEX --> LSP
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ARCH["arch tables<br/>amd64 / arm64 / riscv64 / loong64"] --> LINT
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ARCH --> LSP
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LINT --> LSP
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FMT --> CLI["gasm CLI"]
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LINT --> CLI
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PAR --> CLI
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LEX --> CLI
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LSP --> EDITOR["any LSP editor"]
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```
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The lexer is the shared foundation: the parser builds the AST from it, the
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formatter re-spaces its tokens directly, and the language server uses it for
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semantic highlighting.
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## Components
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### `token` and `lexer`
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The scanner is hand-written and permissive: it never panics and maps anything
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it cannot classify to an `Illegal` token, so every downstream tool still works
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on malformed input. Newlines are significant tokens, because Plan 9 assembly
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is line-oriented and the parser relies on line structure.
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The middle dot (`·`, U+00B7) is treated as an identifier character so that
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`·funcName(SB)` lexes as one symbol. Multi-character operators (`<<`, `>>`,
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`->`) are recognised so arm64 shift operands scan correctly. A backslash
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immediately before a newline is a C-preprocessor line continuation (used by
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`#define` macros in the runtime `.s` files); the lexer splices the lines
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together so a multi-line macro becomes one logical line the parser treats as an
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opaque preprocessor directive.
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### `ast` and `parser`
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The parser is **line-oriented**, matching how the Plan 9 assembler reads a
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file: it groups tokens into lines, classifies each line (directive, label,
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instruction, comment, preprocessor) and dispatches. A malformed line is
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reported and skipped; it never aborts the file.
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Operands are parsed into a faithful, flat representation. The amd64
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addressing modes — `reg`, `$imm`, `(base)`, `off(base)`, `(base)(index*scale)`,
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`name+off(FP)`, `name<>(SB)` — are all captured structurally, and the original
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token text is retained for fidelity.
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A deliberate boundary: the AST records **syntax only**. Whether a bare
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identifier is a register or a label is an *architecture* question, so it is
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left to `arch` and resolved in the lint/lsp layers. This keeps the parser
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arch-agnostic and its output deterministic.
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### `arch`
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Register files are generated programmatically (the regular `R8`–`R15`,
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`X0`–`X15`, `Y0`–`Y15`, `Z0`–`Z31`, `K0`–`K7` ranges) plus the irregularly
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named registers listed explicitly. Instruction names are **generated from the
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Go toolchain's own assembler source** (`cmd/internal/obj/<arch>/anames.go`,
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plus the common opcodes and the per-architecture front-end aliases such as the
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arm64 `B`/`BL` branches and the `.P`/`.W` load-store addressing suffixes) by
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`just gen`, so the tables always match what the real assembler accepts. Each
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mnemonic maps to a summary and an optional operand-count range; counts are
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recorded only where unambiguous (`-1` disables the operand-count lint for that
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instruction) so the linter stays silent rather than guess. For architectures
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with highly variable operand forms (arm64, riscv64, loong64) only a few
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fixed-arity instructions (`RET`, `NOP`, `JMP`, `CALL`) carry counts at all.
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### `lint`
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Rules are conservative by design — silence beats a false positive. The rules
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are `unknown-instruction`, `operand-count`, `undefined-label`,
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`duplicate-label`, `missing-ret`, `missing-textflag-include`, `abi-argsize` and
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`unreachable-code`. Every diagnostic carries a stable code so callers can
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disable rules individually, and arch-specific rules switch off entirely when
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the target architecture cannot be inferred from the file name.
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Two things keep the rules honest on real-world code:
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- **Pseudo-ops and macros are not instructions.** `unknown-instruction` knows
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the assembler pseudo-ops (`BYTE`, `WORD`, `FUNCDATA`, `PCDATA`, …) and
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recognises macro invocations — an in-file `#define` name, or any identifier
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containing an underscore (no Plan 9 mnemonic ever does).
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- **Macro-heavy files get the label/RET heuristics turned off.** Without a
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preprocessor, labels a macro defines are invisible, so `undefined-label` and
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`missing-ret` are suppressed for files that use macros (an in-file `#define`
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or a `#include` of anything other than `textflag.h`). `missing-ret` also
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treats a trailing unconditional jump and `UNDEF` as valid terminators.
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The result is validated by `TestGoRuntimeCorpus`, which parses and lints every
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`src/runtime/*.s` file the toolchain ships for all four architectures and
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asserts zero parse errors and zero error-severity diagnostics.
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Two deeper analyses sit on top of the AST:
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- **`abi-argsize`.** Hand-written kernels document their signature in a
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`// func …` comment above the `TEXT`. The linter parses that signature with
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the standard library's Go parser, lays out the parameters and results under
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Go's ABI0 stack rules (results begin on a word boundary after the
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parameters), and checks the total against the argument size declared in the
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`TEXT` directive. It only runs for stack-argument functions (a non-zero
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declared arg area that is actually addressed through `FP`), and aborts
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silently on a type whose size it cannot determine — so it never guesses.
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- **`unreachable-code`.** Code after a `RET` and before the next label is
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dead. The check is suppressed for any function whose reachability cannot be
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decided statically: those using PC-relative jumps (`JMP 2(PC)`),
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register-indirect branches (`JALR`/`JR`/`JIRL`/`BR`/`BLR`), or living in a
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file with `#ifdef` conditionals. `UNDEF` is deliberately not a terminator —
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code after it is occasionally intentional metadata.
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- **`register-clobber` (register liveness).** The linter builds the function's
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control-flow graph (basic blocks split at labels and after branches, with
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fall-through and jump-target edges), computes a conservative per-instruction
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register def/use, and runs the standard backward liveness iteration to a fixed
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point. On top of that it flags a **callee-saved register that is written but
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never saved and restored** — the per-architecture callee-saved set is amd64
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`BX/BP/R12–R15`, arm64 `R19–R30`, riscv64 `X1/X8/X9/X18–X27`, loong64
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`R1/R22–R31`. This is an *audit*: the runtime's own assembly clobbers these
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registers freely (it controls both sides of the call), so the rule is
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advisory there, but in hand-written kernels called from ordinary Go code a
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clobber is a genuine ABI violation. It runs only on macro-free files, where
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no opaque macro can perform the save/restore.
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- **`funcdata-pcdata`.** `FUNCDATA $idx, sym(SB)` and `PCDATA $idx, $val` are
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checked for well-formed operands (arity, immediate index and value, symbol
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reference) and a literal index is range-checked; a named index constant such
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as `$PCDATA_StackMapIndex` is accepted without a range check.
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### `format`
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The formatter works on the **token stream, not the AST**, so it preserves
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every line — comments and blanks included. It only normalises indentation,
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operand spacing and per-function mnemonic alignment. It is idempotent and its
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output always round-trips through the parser.
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### `lsp`
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The server speaks JSON-RPC 2.0 with `Content-Length` framing over any
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`io.Reader`/`io.Writer` (normally stdin/stdout). It maintains an in-memory
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document store, republishes diagnostics on every change, and provides:
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- **completion** — instructions, registers, pseudo-registers, textflag macros
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and local labels;
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- **hover** — instruction summaries and register descriptions from `arch`;
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- **document symbols** — `TEXT` functions with their labels, plus `GLOBL`/`DATA`;
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- **semantic tokens** — syntax highlighting delivered as LSP semantic tokens,
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classified with the lexer plus `arch` (instructions, registers by class,
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pseudo-registers, labels, immediates, comments, directives, textflag macros).
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Semantic tokens are the key to editor-agnostic highlighting: the editor renders
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them from the standard LSP legend, so no editor-specific grammar is needed.
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### `asm`
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The standalone assembler (Phase 2). Its core is an amd64 instruction encoder:
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a REX/ModR-M/SIB/displacement/immediate engine plus the scalar instruction set,
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with the Plan 9 operand order (source first) mapped onto the x86 encoding.
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Every encoding is validated by decoding it again with `golang.org/x/arch` — the
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one module dependency, used in tests only and never linked into the binary.
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On top of the encoder, `Assemble` walks a parsed `TEXT` body, converts each
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operand to an encoder operand, and lays the instructions out in two passes so
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local labels resolve to fixed rel32 jump offsets. The `FP`/`SP` pseudo-
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registers are translated onto the hardware stack pointer — `x+N(FP)` becomes
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`(N+8)(SP)` for a zero-frame function and `(N+frame+16)(SP)` once a frame
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pointer is set up, with the matching Go prologue/epilogue generated — so the
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output is byte-identical to the Go assembler for these cases. SIMD is handled
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SIMD is handled
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by a VEX (AVX/AVX2) encoder — the two- and three-byte VEX prefixes with XMM/YMM
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registers — across three operand forms (the three-operand NDS form, the
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two-operand reg/rm form, and the immediate-shift form), together covering the
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bulk of the integer SIMD set; each encoding is validated by round-trip
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decoding. This increment covers register / memory / immediate / FP-frame
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operands, local-label jumps and these VEX SIMD forms; the remaining SIMD forms
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(shuffles, extract/insert, permute, moves), EVEX / AVX-512, `SB` (global
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symbol) operands (relocations) and object-file emission are the rest of
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Phase 2.
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## Extension points
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- **New architecture:** add an entry to the generator in `_gen`, run
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`just gen`, and add a `buildXXX()` register file plus a case in `ForArch`.
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- **New lint rule:** add a function in `lint` and a rule-code constant.
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- **New LSP feature:** add a method case in `dispatch` and a handler.
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The phases follow a dependency chain. Phase 1 (static analysis) builds only on
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the AST; Phase 2 (the standalone assembler) emits object code; Phases 3
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(dynamic analysis) and 4 (the debugger) both consume the execution substrate
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that the assembler provides.
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