README.md

interpreter

A C implementation of the Monkey programming language defined in Thorsten Ball's book "Writing A Interpreter In Go".

Compiling and testing

Compile without tests

gcc -o monkey main.c

Compile with tests

Compile the interpreter and perform tests of the different statements and expressions available in tests/repl.c.

gcc -o monkey main.c; valgrind --leak-check=full --show-leak-kinds=all ./monkey test

(...)
==5256== Command: ./monkey test
==5256==

[PASSED] REPL Test | 90 out of 90 passed

==5256==
==5256== HEAP SUMMARY:
==5256==     in use at exit: 0 bytes in 0 blocks
==5256==   total heap usage: 13,549 allocs, 13,549 frees, 293,249 bytes allocated
==5256==
==5256== All heap blocks were free
d -- no leaks are possible
(...)

Types and control flow

The language currently supports closures, conditional statements, boolean expressions, integers, strings, arrays, and hash maps. Prefix and infix operations are available for some types.

The identifiers let and return define statements and do not produce values. The aforementioned type are called expressions since they produce values. For example, let x = 5 does not produce a value, but 5 does.

When the code is parsed and evaluated, x will refer to the name of an Object type containing a reference to an IntegerObject type containing the integer literal value of 5.

Running code

Execute REPL

Access the REPL by providing repl as an argument as in ./monkey repl.

Output

Type '\h' for help and '\q' to quit
>>> let a = 5;
5
>>> a + 10;
15
>>> \h
Commands:
Display environment: ... \e
Open file: ............. \o
>>> \e
[10] a:  0x557f0a1bd290,
>>> \q
Bye!

Open a file

Open the file examples/count.in from within the REPL using \o:

examples/count.in

let c = fn(x, g) {
    if(x < g) {
        return c(x + 1, g);
    } else {
        return x * 2;
    }
};


let fib = fn(x) {
    if(x == 0) {
        return 0;
    } else {
        if(x == 1) {
            return 1;
        } else {
            return fib(x - 1) + fib(x - 2);
        }
    }
};

c(0, 1000);
fib(10);

Output

Type '\h' for help and '\q' to quit
>>> \o
*** Open file: examples/count.in
File "examples/count.in" opened
2000
55
>>> \q
Bye!

Built-in functions

The language supports a few built-in functions: len, find, str, push, first, last, rest, and type.

len(string or array)

>>> len("abcde")
5
>>> len([1, 2, "z"]) + 1
4

find(string, string)

>>> find("abc", "c")
2
>>> find("abc", "d")
-1

string(non-string)

>>> str([1, 2]) + " (string)"
'[1, 2] (string)'

push(array, object)

>>> let a = [1];
[1]
>>> push(a, 2);
NULL
>>> a
[1, 2]

first(array), last(array), rest(array)

>>> first(["a", "b"])
'a'
>>> last([1, 2])
2
>>> rest([1,2,3])
[2, 3]

type(object)

>>> type({'a': 1})
'HASHMAP'
>>> type([1])
'ARRAY'
>>> type(fn(x) { return false; })
'FUNCTION'

Todo

• Implement mark-and-sweep garbage collection
• Include support for more control flow statements
• Add custom type support
• Finish the compiler implementation in Thorsten Ball's "Writing A Compiler In Go"