ESL is a new programming language designed to be used for efficient programming of embedded and other "small" systems. ESL an acronym for Embedded Systems Language (it can be pronounced “essel”).
ESL is a typed compiled language with features that allow the programmer to dictate the concrete representation of data values. This distinguishes it from languages which implement only “abstract” types or types whose representation is architecture-dependent. The programmer can dictate the details of data representation, including such things as “endian-ness” and the exact placement and packing of bits. These are necessary in dealing with external representations of data layout, e.g., communication protocols or device registers. Procedures can return multiple values.
The ESL compiler is a front-end for the LLVM (http://llvm.org) compiler. The compiler is self-hosting, i.e., it is written in ESL. It currently runs only on Linux on:
- x86
- x86_64
- S/390/z990 (tested with Hercules)
- armv7l (tested on the Raspberry Pi 2)
- aarch64 (tested on the Raspberry Pi 3 in 64-bit mode)
The compiler has been build on MacOSX/x86_64 but the process is left as an exercise to the reader.
The compiler back-end is LLVM. LLVM version 3.7.0 or 3.8.0 are the expected versions for the current front end. Previous versions of LLVM require the use of the -L flag. If LLVM is installed, then "cd src; make" should work.
The compiler, in its current state, implements most of the language features. Documentation is incomplete.
The file esl-examples.tgz contains sample code that blinks LEDs on two embedded development platforms for ARM Cortex-M3 chips. For many more examples, download the code at https://github.com/bagel99/blocks-os/.
ESL, and its compiler, is being developed by Brian G. Lucas ([email protected] (initials "bgl" pronounced "bagel")).