Features
VIREX is a lightweight, educational virtual machine designed for clarity, customizability, and systems programming exploration.
🧠 Core VM Features
Custom Instruction Set
Hybrid Architecture (Stack + Registers)
Memory Management
Region-Based Memory Management (WIP)
The VIREX Virtual Machine implements a compact instruction set capable of handling control flow, arithmetic, logic, memory operations, and I/O.
It follows a hybrid architecture that combines a traditional register set with stack-based operations.
RAM is simulated for direct memory manipulation, and an experimental region-based memory management system (based on linked lists) is currently under development to support efficient allocation and deallocation.
Current Status:
Implementation of Region- Based Memory Management done, but not yet integrated completely.
🖥️ Interface & Integration
- Portable C Implementation
- Interactive Execution Modes
- Modular Output System
- Built-in Debug Visuals
- Customizable Callbacks(WIP)
- Plugin-Friendly Architecture(WIP)
Clean ANSI C99 codebase with minimal dependencies.
VIREX provides rich debugging capabilities with interactive step-by-step execution, making it ideal for inspecting program behavior.
Its modular UI includes live-updating windows for output, memory state, and instruction traces.
The debug visuals make it easy to understand internal state changes during execution.
CLI, GUI, or other UIs can be built around the exposed interfaces due to the plugin nature.
Developers can also inject custom callbacks after each instruction cycle to enable advanced features like profiling or visualization.
Current Status:
Still in Ideation/Planning phase, the Region-Based memory allocation, TUI and AST may be separated into individual plugins in future.
SASM is the assembler that compiles human-readable .sasm source code into binary files executable by VIREX.
🧵 Parsing & Assembly Workflow
Rule-Based Parser
Custom AST
Multi-Stage Compilation Pipeline
Custom Executable
Compile-Time Evaluation Support (len(), ref(), value(), res())
SASM employs a rule-based parsing system that strictly separates files into well-defined stages: file, line, statement, and expression parsing.
After this process, a custom Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) is constructed, allowing deeper insights into source structure.
The assembler supports compile-time evaluation with functions like len("string"), ref(reg), and others, enabling more expressive assembly code. Final output is generated as VIREX-compatible .sm binaries, completing the clean multi-stage compilation flow.
🧩 Modular & Advanced Features
Assembly Directives like 'include', 'bind', 'scope' and 'entry'
Constant and Label Definitions
Operand Intent Detection
Educational Architecture
SASM supports modular assembly development with features like the include directive for file composition and symbolic definitions for constants, labels, enabling clear, maintainable code.
It also provides directives like scope for local scoping and entry whuch identifies the entry point.
Advanced capabilities include operand intent detection at compile time using evaluation functions, allowing smart resolution of operand types.
Designed with clarity and structure, SASM is ideal for educational use in understanding assembler internals and low-level compilation workflows.