Perl 6 and Parrot Essentials, Second Edition

Basics

PASM has a simple syntax. Each statement stands on its own line. Statements begin with a Parrot instruction code (commonly referred to as an “opcode”). Arguments follow the opcode, separated by commas:

[label] opcode dest, source, source  . . .

If the opcode returns a result, it is stored in the first argument. Sometimes the first register is both a source value and the destination of the result. The arguments are either registers or constants, though only source arguments can be constants:

LABEL:
    print "The answer is: "
    print 42
    print "\n"
    end                # halt the interpreter

A label names a line of code so other instructions can refer to it. Label names consist of letters, numbers, and underscores. Simple labels are often all caps to make them stand out more clearly. A label definition is simply the name of the label followed by a colon. It can be on its own line:

LABEL:
    print "Norwegian Blue\n"

or before a statement on the same line:

LABEL: print "Norwegian Blue\n"

Comments are marked with the hash sign (#) and continue to the end of the line.

POD (plain old documentation) markers are ignored by Parrot. An equals sign in the first column marks the start of a POD block, and a =cut marks the end of a POD block.

=head1
 . . . 
=cut

Constants

Integer constants are signed integers.^[30] Integer constants can have a positive (+) or negative (-) sign in front. Binary integers are preceded by 0b or 0B, and hexadecimal integers are preceded by 0x or 0X:

print 42 # integer constant print 0x2A # hexadecimal ...