[alok-g]

I understand that assembly file can be parsed in the same way. However, I want to learn about the machine instructions to the level of bits, and likewise the layouts of binary files. Unless I am able to go all the way to machine code loaded in memory, I would not know where in memory to add a breakpoint instruction when a developer wants the same on a line of code.

If there is some library that can help create machine code from assembly instructions on a line by line basis (at least as opposed to invoking a separate program that generates the entire binary collectively from the assembly code), that could also work.

In my case, I already know enough of the lexer, parser, etc., parts. What's missing is going all the way to making a debugger, profiler, etc.

[fuhsnn]

>If there is some library that can help create machine code from assembly instructions on a line by line basis

That's what JIT libraries do, for example asmjit: https://github.com/asmjit/asmjit/blob/master/test/asmjit_tes...

[dymk]

asmjit is great; I used it for building a primitive (but quite fast) query engine for in-memory graphs. It made it simple to go from query AST to native instructions, most of which was "call this other compiled function".

[alok-g]

Looks cool! Thanks.

[rramadass]

Checkout GNU Binutils and their usage of libbfd and libopcodes.

[jsnnsjxj]

Building a debugger and profiler is quite an advanced task compared to building an assembler though ^^

Also much of that work is heavily dependent on the used operating system.

Nevertheless, I'm wishing you all the best on your journey!

[peterfirefly]

Really? You can get quite far just with ptrace() on Linux... and maybe something like system("nm xxxx > file") for the symbols.