Update: 2025-08-19

This repository used to hold two projects: p4cherry and p4-spectec. p4cherry is an OCaml implementation of the P4 language, while p4-spectec is a formal, mechanized specification for P4 using the SpecTec framework. We have now split these projects into their own repositories for better organization and clarity. Now, p4-spectec can be found at: P4-SpecTec.

P4Cherry

An OCaml implementation of the P4 language. This reuses parts of the Petr4 codebase, especially the parser and numerics implementation.

Building

• Install opam version 2.0.5 or higher.

  $ apt-get install opam
  $ opam init

• Create OCaml switch for version 5.1.0 Install dune version 3.16.1, bignum version v0.17.0, menhir version 20240715, core version v0.17.1, core_unix version v0.17.0, and bisect_ppx version 2.8.3 via opam.

  $ opam switch create 5.1.0
  $ eval $(opam env)
  $ opam install dune bignum menhir core core_unix bisect_ppx

• Install the project.

  $ cd p4
  $ dune build p4cherry.opam 
  $ opam install .
  $ cd ..

Building the Project

$ make build

This creates an executable p4cherry in the project root.

Additional Notes

You may also need libgmp-dev and pkg-config, if the error message says so.

To Run p4cherry

$ ./p4cherry parse -i p4/testdata/arch [FILENAME].p4
$ ./p4cherry typecheck -i p4/testdata/arch [FILENAME].p4
$ ./p4cherry instantiate -i p4/testdata/arch [FILENAME].p4
$ ./p4cherry run -a v1model -i p4/testdata/arch [FILENAME].p4 [TESTNAME].stf

Note that p4cherry currently only supports the V1Model architecture, and partly the eBPF architecture.

Current Test Status

You can run the tests against the p4c compiler test suite and petr4 custom test suite with:

$ make test

To measure the coverage of the tests, run:

$ make coverage

This will generate index.html in p4/_coverage.

Parser

Parsing, pretty-printing, and roundtripping (p4c / petr4)

Type checker

• Positive type checker tests (well-typed programs should be accepted) (p4c / petr4)
• Excluded positive type checker tests (p4c)
• Negative type checker tests (ill-typed programs should be rejected) (p4c / petr4)
• Excluded negative type checker tests (p4c)

Analysis of test failures: p4c-pos / p4c-neg / petr4-pos

Instantiator

Instantiation of stateful objects (p4c / petr4)

Interpreter

Running STF tests against the p4c compiler test suite and petr4 custom test suite (for V1Model) (p4c / petr4)

Analysis of test failures: p4c / petr4

Contributing

p4cherry is an open-source project. Please feel free to contribute by opening issues or pull requests.

License

p4cherry is released under the Apache 2.0 license.