Cairn 🏔️

(Software Demo Video)

Description

Cairn is a stack-oriented programming language. All code is executed from a single execution stack and ultimately evaluated into a single data stack.

My main reason for creating this language was out of interest in stack-based approaches. So, while this project was mostly an exploratory venture for me, it also resulted in a very lightweight math-focused language that I can use for complex mathematical calculations that I need done quickly. I may use it as a scripting language for other personal projects as an alternative to Python or Bash, if it matures enough and gains general-purpose utility.

Basics

• All code must be contained in a function.
• The $main function is automatically invoked at runtime.
• Whitespace (like newlines, extra spaces) is not significant. There is no concept of code blocks besides a function, so any kind of code nesting using brackets or indentation has no place in this language.
• The only information allowed on the stack is numbers. Anything else attempting to go onto it must be evaluated to a number.
• Code comments are done with #.

Example

$fact
  dup -- dup ?++:fact *         # Conditionals and recursion

$say_hi
  "Hello, " print print "!" println

$main
  10 5 + 7 * putln              # Print some math operations

  10000 fact putln              # Use Factorial Function

  "Hello world!" println        # Some stdoutput examples
  "Preston" say_hi
  "What is your name?" println
  readln say_hi

Built-in functions

Input/Output

• put/putln (pops 1): outputs the value at the top of the stack as an integer.
• print/println (pops 1): outputs as a string instead of an int
• readln (pops 0, pushes 1): Reads a line from the standard input

Math

• ++: increment (pops 1, pushes 1) - increments the value at the top of the stack by 1
• --: decrement (pops 1, pushes 1)
• +: add (pops 2, pushes 1)
• -: subtract (pops 2, pushes 1) - subtracts value of top of stack from value underneath it
• *: multiply (pops 2, pushes 1) - multiplies the top two values
• div: divide (pops 2, pushes 1) - integer division
• %: modulo (pops 2, pushes 1)
• =/!=/</>/<=/>= (pops 2, pushes 1) - comparison operators (pushes 0 for false and 1 for true)

Control Flow

• _ (pops 1, pushes 0): drop
• dup (pops 1, pushes 2): copies the value at the top of the stack
• swp (pops 2, pushes 2): Switches the location of the top two items in the stack (a b -> b a)
• over (pops 3, pushes 3): Rearranges the top three values of the stack like this: a b c -> b c a (a moves to the top of the stack)
• ?[val1]:[val2]:...:[valN] (pops 1, pushes 0): Match statement (TODO: describe in further detail)
• exit (pops 1, pushes 0): Exit the program with error code of the popped value

Data Types

• Int (arbitrary size supported)

Strings are syntactic sugar. When the interpreter comes across a string, it converts it into an int according to Unicode standard. "Hello" -> 0x48656c6c6f (310939249775). Ints in Cairn can be arbitrarily large. Part of the principles of this language is that you can really represent any kind of data using a number. The significance of data it is defined by its usage, not its attributes. This is why it has separate functions to print numbers and strings.

• There is no null type.
• There is no collection type. Using the stack to store and manipulate a collection is possible, but the recommended way is to use modular arithmetic to marshal and unmarshal collections of data within a single integer.
• Floating-point support is under consideration.

Installing

Linux

• Clone the repository.
• In the repo's root directory, type make, followed by sudo make install.
• Execute Cairn code with cairn [code].crn.

Development Environment

Cairn was developed using these tools:

• Neovim
• Rust compiler (didn't think I would ever have a favorite compiler, but here I am!)

Useful Resources

• The Rust Book
• Let's get Rusty's video about Rust String types