LARD Tutorial

Note that the full source to the example programs presented here can be found in this directory.

Section 1: LARD as a programming language

• Hello World: the simplest program and how to compile and execute it.
• Greatest Common Divisor: introducing more basic features, optimised compilation and debugging.
• Swap: introducing classes, var parameters, type parameters, and implicit parameters.
• Prime Numbers: introducing vectors.
• For loop: introducing expr parameters.
• Records: Defining records and accessing fields.
• Case Statements and Enumerated Types: More useful bits and pieces.
• Files: Reading from and writing to files.
• Hex, Binary, and bitwise operations: Useful things for describing low-level operations.
• Infix Notation: Defining your own infix expressions.
• Sparse Arrays: A data type based on hashing ideal for memory models.

Section 2: LARD as a hardware description language

• Channel-communicating Incrementer: basics of atomic channel communication, concurency, wait_for, execution in the graphical environment.
• Call block: selecting using chan_ready, wait_until.
• Starvation and Blocking: understanding the channel viewer.
• Records and Channels: formatting the data displayed in the channel viewer for structured types.
• Block Viewer: animation using the block viewer.

Section 3: Larger examples

• The blocksorter
• The SCALP instruction issuer
• The re-order buffer model