Description
An Interpreter for a Simple PostScript-like Language
Weight: The entire interpreter project (Part 1 and Part 2 together) will count for 12% of your course grade. This first part is worth 3% and second part is 9% – the goal is to make sure you are on the right track and have a chance for mid-course correction before completing Part 2. However, the work and amount of code involved in Part 1 is still a large fraction of the total project, so you need to get going on this part right away.
This assignment is to be your own work. Refer to the course academic integrity statement in the syllabus.
Turning in your assignment
The HW4_part1.zip includes the skeleton code provided for part1.
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psItems.py : You will not make any changes to this file in part-1. It includes the class definitions for representing array and code-array constants. (i.e., Value, ArrayValue, and
FunctionValue).
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psOperators.py : You will write your PostScript operator implementations in this file. It defines the class Operators ; the operator functions you write will be methods of this class.
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tests_part1.py: Includes the Python unittests for the PostScript operator functions. You will add your own tests to this file.
All your operator implementations should be added to the psOperators.py file. When you are done and certain that everything is working correctly, turn in your psOperators.py and psItems.py files by uploading them on the HW4-SPS (Part1) DROPBOX on Canvas ( on Assignments page). You don’t need to make any changes to psItems.py file; but in case you do we would like to have a copy of your file.
At the top of the file in a comment, please include your name and the names of the students with whom you discussed any of the problems in this homework. This is an individual assignment and the final writing in the submitted file should be *solely yours*. You may NOT copy another student’s code or work together on writing code. You may not copy code from the web, or anything else that lets you avoid solving the problems for yourself.
You may turn in your assignment up to 3 times. Only the last one submitted will be graded.
Implement your code for Python3. The TA will run all assignments using Python3 interpreter. You will lose points if your code is incompatible with Python3.
Grading
The assignment will be marked for good programming style (appropriate algorithms, good indentation and appropriate comments — refer to the Python style guide) — as well as thoroughness of testing and clean and correct execution.
In this assignment you will write an interpreter in Python for a simplified PostScript-like language, concentrating on key computational features of the abstract machine, omitting all PostScript features related to graphics, and using a somewhat-simplified syntax. The simplified language, SPS, has the following features of PostScript:
Constants:
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integer constants, e.g. 1, 2, 3, -4, -5. We will represent integer constants as Python
“int” values in opstack and dictstack.
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boolean constants, e.g. , true , false. We will represent boolean constants as Python
“bool” values in opstack and dictstack.
▪ array constants, e.g. [1 2 3 4], [-1 2 3 -4], [1 x 3 4 add 2 sub],
[1 [3 5 5] dup length], [1 2 x 4] where x is a variable. We will represent array constants as ArrayValue objects (see psElements.py file.) Note that arrays can also have subarrays.
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name constants, e.g. /fact, /x. A name constant starts with a ‘/’ and letter followed by an arbitrary sequence of letters and numbers. We will represent name constants as Python “str” values in opstack and dictstack.
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names to be looked up in the dictionary stack, e.g., fact, x; as for name constants, without the ‘/’
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code constants (i.e., code-arrays); code between matched curly braces { … }
Operators:
▪ built-in operators on numbers: add, sub, mul, mod, eq, lt, gt
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built-in operators on array values: length, getinterval, putinterval, aload, astore. These operators should support ArrayValue arguments.
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built-in conditional operators: if, ifelse (you will implement if/ifelse operators in Part2)
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built-in loop operator: repeat (you will implement repeat operator in Part 2).
▪ stack operators: dup, copy, count, pop, clear, exch, roll, stack
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dictionary creation operator: dict; takes one operand from the operand stack, ignores it, and creates a new, empty dictionary on the operand stack (we will call this psDict)
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dictionary stack manipulation operators: begin, end.
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begin requires one dictionary operand on the operand stack; end has no operands.
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name definition operator: def. We will call this psDef.
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stack printing operator: stack. Prints contents of opstack without changing it.
In Part 1 you will build some essential pieces of the interpreter but not yet the full interpreter. The pieces you build will be driven by Python test code rather than actual PostScript programs. The pieces you are going to build first are:
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The operand and dictionary stacks
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Defining variables (with def) and looking up names
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The operators that don’t involve code-arrays: all of the operators except repeat loop
operator, if/ifelse operators, and calling functions (You will complete these in Part 2)
1. The Operand and Dictionary Stacks – opstack and dictstack
In our interpreter we will define the operand and dictionary stacks as attributes of the Operators class in psOperators.py file. Both stacks will be represented as Python lists. When using a list as a stack, we will assume that the top of the stack is the end of the list (i.e., the pushing and popping happens at the end of the list).
The opstack will only include the evaluated values, i.e. the values that the PostScript expressions evaluate to. In the opstack:
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The primitive values (i.e., integers, booleans) are represented as Python “int” and “bool” values, respectively.
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The function and variable names will be represented as Python “str” values where the first character is ‘/’.
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Array constants will be represented as ArrayValue objects.
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Code-array (i.e., function bodies, and bodies of repeat, if, ifelse expressions) are represented as FunctionValue objects.
The dictstack will include the dictionaries where the PostScript variable and function definitions are stored. The dictionary stack needs to support adding and removing dictionaries at the top of the stack (i.e., end of the list), as well as defining and looking up names. Note that dictstack holds all the local and global variables accessible at a particular point in the program, i.e., the referencing environment.
Note about array constants:
As mentioned above, in our interpreter we will represent array constants as ArrayValue objects. Remember that, when the PostScript code is interpreted, the array constant values will be evaluated. If the array constant value includes variables, operators, functions, or other arrays, those will be evaluated before the array constant is pushed onto the stack.
In part-2, we will represent the non-evaluated arrays as ArrayExpr objects. When ArrayExpr objects are evaluated, they will be converted to ArrayValue values and then pushed onto the opstack. For example,
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ArrayExpr ([1 1 add 5 2 sub]) will be evaluated to ArrayValue ([2,3]) before it is pushed onto the opstack.
– ArrayExpr ([1 2 3 add 5 eq]) will be evaluated to ArrayValue ([1,True])
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ArrayExpr ([1 x 3 4 add x sub]) will be evaluated to ArrayValue ([1,2,5]) where x’s value is 2.
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ArrayExpr ([1 x y 4]) will be evaluated to ArrayValue ([1,2,3,4])where x’s value is 2 and y’s value is 3.
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ArrayExpr [1 (CptS355) dup length] will be evaluated to ArrayValue ([1,StrConstant(‘(CptS355)’,7]).
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define and lookup
You will write two helper functions, define and lookup, to define a variable and to lookup the values of a variable, respectively.
The define function adds the “name:value” pair to the top dictionary in the dictionary stack. Your psDef function ( i.e., your implementation of the PostScript def operator) should pop the name and value from opstack and call the “define” function.
You should keep the ‘/’ in the name constant when you store it in the dictStack.
“””Helper function. Adds name:value pair to the top dictionary in the dictstack. (Note: If the dictstack is empty, first adds an empty dictionary to the dictstack then adds the name:value to that.”””
def define(self, name, value):
pass
The lookup function should look-up the value of a given variable in the dictionary stack. In Part 2, when you interpret simple PostScript expressions, you will call this function for variable lookups and function calls.
“””Helper function. Searches the dictstack for a variable or function and returns its value. (Starts searching at the top of the opstack; returns None and prints an error message if name is not found. Make sure to add ‘/’ to the beginning of the name.)”””
def lookup(self,name):
pass
3. Operators
Operators will be implemented as zero-argument Python functions that manipulate the operand and dictionary stacks. For example, the add operator could be implemented as follows.
“””Pops 2 values from opstack; checks if they are numerical (int); adds them; then pushes the result back to opstack.
“””
def add(self):
if len(self.opstack) > 1:
op1 = self.opPop()
op2 = self.opPop()
if isinstance(op1,int) and isinstance(op2,int):
self.opPush(op1 + op2)
else:
print(“Error: add – one of the operands is not a number value”)
self.opPush(op2)
self.opPush(op1)
else:
print(“Error: add expects 2 operands”)
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The begin and end operators are a little different in that they manipulate the dictionary stack in addition to (or instead of) the operand stack. Remember that the dict operator (i.e., psDict function)affects only the operand stack.
(Note about dict: dict takes an integer operand from the operand stack and pushes an empty
dictionary to the operand stack (affects only the operand stack). The initial size argument is ignored
– PostScript requires it for backward compatibility of dict operator with the early PostScript versions).
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The def operator (i.e., psDef function) takes two operands from the opstack: a string and a value – recall that strings that start with “/” in the operand stack represent names of PostScript variables. It calls define function to add the name and value to the top dictionary.
Important Note: For all operators you need to implement basic checks, i.e., check whether there are sufficient number of values in the operand stack and check whether those values have correct types. For example,
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def operator: the operand stack should have 2 values where the second value from top of the stack is a string starting with ‘/’
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getinterval operator : the operand stack should have 3 values; the top two valuea on the stack should be integers (count and index) and the third value should be an ArrayValue.
Also, see the add implementation on page 3. You will be deducted points if you don’t do error checking.
4. Testing Your Code
We will be using the unittest Python testing framework in this assignment. See https://docs.python.org/3/library/unittest.html for additional documentation.
The file tests_part1.py provides sample test cases for the SPS operators. This file imports the Operators module (psOperators.py file) which will include your implementations of the SPS operators.
You don’t need to provide new tests in this assignment.
In Python unittest framework, each test function has a “test_” prefix. To run all tests, execute the following command on the command line.
python -m unittest tests_part1.py
You can run tests with more detail (higher verbosity) by passing in the -v flag:
python -m unittest -v tests_part1.py
