How to define VALUE and TO

Question

I want to implement the Forth words VALUE and TO on a RPC/8 (an emulated computer in a Minecraft mod). My best attempts get me a set of words that work fine so long as I don't use them while compiling. More sepecificly VALUE works, but TO does not.

: VALUE CREATE , DOES> @ ;
: TO ' 3 + ! ;

I have tried everything I can think of to get it working and my best attempt gets me this:

['] NameOfAValue 3 + !

Note that the processor is not a pure 6502 but a 65EL02, a custom variant of the 65816.

EDIT #1: Somehow I forgot the call to CREATE in value. It should have been there all along. EDIT #2: I also got 3 and + switched around in TO... oops. It should have been the other way all along.

Answer 1

Ok After a lot of trial and error as well as much searching I found something that should work, but because of two bugs in redFORTH, does not.

VALUE

\ Works fine, now to reset the value.
: VALUE \ n <name> --
    CREATE ,
    DOES> @
;

TO

\ Works if not compiling, LITERAL and POSTPONE are broken.
: TO
    TIBWORD FIND 3 +
    STATE @ IF
        POSTPONE LITERAL
        POSTPONE !
    ELSE
        !
    THEN
; IMMEDIATE

Demo of bug in LITERAL

\ fails, very wierd error.
: TESTLIT [ 42 ] LITERAL ;
\ TESTLIT Unknown Token: TESTLIT
\ FORGET TESTLIT Unknown Token: TESTLIT
\ WORDS TESTLIT COLD SORTMATCH ...

Demo of bug in POSTPONE

\ fails, postpone is directly equivelent to [']
: TESTPOST POSTPONE + ; IMMEDIATE
: TEST 2 2 TESTPOST . ;
\ . 1935
\ ' + . 1935

I'm off to file a bug report....

EDIT #1: After some more trial and error and not a little swearing (I'm not good with FORTH) I found a way to make it work.

: TO
    TIBWORD FIND 3 +
    STATE @ IF
        (lit) (lit) , , \ store address
        (lit) ! ,
ELSE
        !
    THEN
; IMMEDIATE

Answer 2

The simplest solution is

VARIABLE TO-MESSAGE   \ 0 : FROM ,  1 : TO .           
: TO 1 TO-MESSAGE ! ;

: VALUE CREATE , DOES> TO-MESSAGE @ IF ! ELSE @ THEN 
 0 TO_MESSAGE ! ; 

It uses only CORE words and is absolutely standard. And it just works in interpret and compile mode, because there is no fishy look ahead in the input stream.

Answer 3

I'm not sure how your Forth handles interpreting versus compile time, but the definition of TO is trying to store a value to address 3. Seems fishy.