README

This software allows one to run some experiments with
binary lambda calculus as a vehicle for Algorithmic Information Theory.

To run a lambda calculus machine:

  ./blc run program_file

where program_file holds the programa text, e.g.

  ./blc run id.lam

The machine takes its input from stdin, so this works just like cat with no argument.

You can do
  make prog.blc
or 
  make prog.blc8
to compile programs for universal machine uni.lam or the byte oriented uni8.lam
The compiled code is best placed in the bin subdirectory.
Setting environment variable BLCPATH allow ./uni to find binaries there.

Run the bit-oriented universal machine with

  ./blc run uni.lam [conditional data]

or in absence of conditional data, with

  ./uni -b

Run the byte-oriented universal machine with

  ./blc run8 uni8.lam [conditional data]

or in absence of conditional data, with

  ./uni

Running ./blc without arguments will show all available actions.

  ./uni -h will show how to see all options and typical uses

See the lambda source files *.lam for more examples.

Implementations of the universal machine in many other languages
may be found at https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Universal_Lambda_Machine

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_lambda_calculus
for background information and the paper LC.pdf for technical details.

credits:
Module Lambda is derived from Lennart Augustsson's
http://www.augustsson.net/Darcs/Lambda/
Chris Hendrie and Bertram Felgenhauer contributed code and ideas