Start

Download

Download the Minilang source code from Github.

Building

There are two ways to build the Minilang library (lib/libminilang.a) and interpreter (bin/minilang).

Using Rabs

This is the preferred method for building the Minilang library and interpreter. It requires installing Rabs first, see here for instructions.

$ git clone https://github.com/wrapl/minilang
$ cd minilang
$ rabs -D<build option 1> -D<build option 2> ...

A number of build options can be defined when invoking rabs to enable some additional features:

-DDEFAULTS:

Sets a number of typical build options based on the currently detected platform and architecture. This is the recommended build option.

-DNANBOXING:

Uses NaN-boxing techniques to reduce memory usage for numeric values. Provides significant speed improvements but may not be available / fully tested on all platforms. Currently tested on x64 only.

-DMATH:

Adds several maths functions and multiple dimensional numeric arrays to the library. See math and array.

-DCOMPLEX:

Adds support for complex numbers.

-DTABLES:

Adds support for working with tabular data. See table. Enables -DMATH.

-DGIR:

Adds gobject-introspection functions to the library. See gir.

-DGTK_CONSOLE:

Adds a GTK+ console to the interpreter, enables -DGIR.

-DCBOR:

Adds CBOR encoding and decoding functions to the library. See cbor and CBOR.

-DJSON:

Adds JSON encoding and decoding functions to the library. See json.

-DSCHEDULER:

Adds support for preemptive multitasking by suspending code after a defined number of instructions, configurable at runtime.

-DMODULES:

Adds support for loading modules at runtime. On Linux, this includes support for shared object (.so) files. Enables -DSCHEDULER.

-DTRE:

Uses the TRE library (https://laurikari.net/tre/) for regular expressions, supporting fuzzy matching.

-DGENERICS:

Adds support for generic types.

-DTIME:

Adds support for time values. See time.

-DUUID:

Adds support for UUID values. See uuid.

Using Make

Since Minilang is used within Rabs, it can also be built with make. This enables only a subset of the available features and is intended just for building Rabs.

$ git clone https://github.com/wrapl/minilang
$ cd minilang
$ make

Running

Building Minilang with either Rabs or Make will produce an executable interpreter in bin/minilang. Running minilang without arguments will open a Minilang REPL where you can test the language. Type Ctrl + C to exit the REPL.

$ ./bin/minilang
--> list(1 .. 10)
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
--> print("Hello world!\n")
Hello world!
nil
--> <Ctrl+C>
$

Additional arguments can be passed to minilang:

<file> [<arg₁> <arg₂> ...]:

Runs the code in <file> as a script.

-G:

Opens a GTK+ console if enabled.

-m <module>:

If built with module support, runs <module> as a module.

-s <interval>:

If built with a scheduler, enables preemptive multitasking every <interval> instructions.

When run with a script, additional command line arguments are passed in a variable called Args.

Minilang treats the first line of a script as a comment if it begins with #! allowing scripts to be made executable on some operating systems.

echo.mini

#!<path to minilang executable>

print('Args = {Args}\n')

$ chmod +x echo.mini
$ ./echo.mini
Args = []
$ ./echo.mini Hello world
Args = [Hello, world]
$

Embedding

See Embedding.