PacLang

Version Alpha 1

This is the first public release of the PacLang language. While this version is not yet stable or complete enough for it to be used to develop full scale commercial applications, it has enough features to demonstrate the basic PacLang approach and allow potential users to experiment with the PacLang system, prior to a more stable release.

Our focus so far has been on performance, rather than language features. As a result, the currently implemented version of PacLang has only a small proportion of the features we have planned, but programs written in it can run extremely fast.

Get it from SourceForge here.

Performance

The IP Forwarder demo achieves performance comparable to hand-tuned microcode. On a RadiSys ENP-2611, the IP Forwarder demo can sustain 3Gb/s using only 5 of the 8 microengines (2 for the receive and transmit drivers, 3 for the PacLang program).

what works

• Core language
• Core type system, including Linear Types, Views, and user defined datatypes
• Script-directed partitioning of a program between microengines
• Generation of efficient code for the Intel^® IXP2400™ Network Processor  in the RadiSys ENP-2611 package
• Basic demo apps run, including an IP Forwarder

What is currently missing

• Support for network processors other than the IXP2400™
• Support for IXP™ packages other than the Radisys ENP2611
• Generation of code for the XScale^® core of IXP™ processors
• Memory deallocation (currently memory can be allocated, but not freed)
• Support for further advanced language features

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