Diagnostics and Testing

RIF reports errors at the phase where they are detected.

Syntax Errors

Gram reports malformed RIF syntax, missing delimiters, invalid token forms, and incomplete Rule lines. Newline-sensitive failures usually indicate a missing newline, a missing final | in a table row, or a malformed multiline emitfr block.

Semantic Errors

The semantic phase reports unresolved token names, missing tables or columns, unknown Rules, invalid reservation names, duplicate table keys, invalid widths, and invalid configuration values. These errors occur while compiling the target definition, before external MIR is executed.

Runtime Errors

RIFRuntimeError reports failures such as:

• a consumer receiving the wrong token;
• an empty datastack pop;
• a missing table match;
• an immediate that cannot fit;
• an out-of-range bit read or patch;
• an unknown reservation or Rule;
• an invalid Python function result.

Rule Traces

After execution, inspect:

result.context.last_rule_trace
result.context.rule_traces

Traces show where a Rule started, how many physical and virtual bits it produced, where it ended, and how much of that output was explicit padding.

Test Commands

Run the repository suite with VNMA:

vnma test

The test suite covers parser integration, table stress, packages, direct and CLI MIR compilation, Python functions, physical and virtual memory, datastack behavior, and failure paths.