Re: Testing a JVM implementation

From:
"Oliver Wong" <owong@castortech.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
Tue, 3 Jul 2007 17:14:39 -0400
Message-ID:
<4%yii.56382$Si7.657245@weber.videotron.net>
"Pedro Brandao" <pgbrandao@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1183434641.831226.224410@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com...

Greetings!

I've recently developed a simple JVM in C++ as a university
assignment; by simple I really do mean simple! There is no support for
strings, longs or doubles, multi-dimensional arrays, any Java classes
besides output (which is emulated), inheritance or other fancy OO
features.

More importantly what it is capable of doing is working with floats,
integers, doing proper flow control, converting between floats and
integers, working with static and non-static fields and methods, be it
through instantiation or otherwise. Single-dimensional arrays are
supported. In other words: all the fun Java stuff is left out, but it
is nonetheless a workable programming language.

But the thing is, it's really hard to find Java programs with these
constraints! (Not so in C, for example.) I've written a few simple
examples which get their job done while testing individual features,
but does anyone have any suggestions on a more complex program to test
it more thoroughly? The idea is to use it to showcase the VM's
(little) functionality. Either source code or ideas would be
appreciated.


    Without support for strings, it's hard to make interesting output (and
thus interesting programs). If you can emulate strings (perhaps with
arrays of chars), then the following programs might become feasible:

* Hello World
* 99 Bottles of Beer
* Tower of Hanoi
* Factorials

    - Oliver

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