kscript (ks)

kscript (https://kscript.org) is a dynamic programming language with expressive syntax, cross platform support, and a rich standard library. Its primary aim is to allow developers to write platform agnostic programs that can run anywhere, and require little or no platform- or os- specific code.

Documentation is available at kscript.org, which provides examples, tutorials, and coverage of the standard library. Formal specifications are available at the GitHub repository (https://github.com/ChemicalDevelopment/kscript), within the docs folder.

Current Status

kscript is currently a work-in-progress, aiming at an alpha release soon-ish. The most important internals are done (i.e. standard types, most standard functions). However, there are needs in a few areas:

• Distribution to popular platforms (Linux, MacOS, Windows)

Running

To run kscript, you should have either installed or built kscript. These examples will use ks as the binary (if it is only built locally, you may have to replace that with ./bin.ks or ./bin/ks.exe on Windows)

$ ks -h
Usage: ks [options] FILE [args...]
       ks [options] -e 'EXPR' [args...]
       ks [options] - [args...]

Options:
  -h,--help             Prints this help/usage message
  -e,--expr [EXPR]      Run an inline expression, instead of a file
  -                     Start an interactive REPL shell
  -v[vv]                Increase verbosity (use '-vvv' for 'TRACE' level)
  -V,--version          Print out just the version information for kscript

kscript v0.0.1 release Mar 22 2020 14:12:31
Cade Brown <brown.cade@gmail.com>

To execute and display an expression, run:

$ ks -e '1 + 2**4'
17

You can also run the interactive interpreter by running with no arguments (ks), or with - as the filename (ks -):

$ ks
>>> 1 + 2 ** 4
17
>>>

Installing

Right now, it is in an early alpha stage, so installers aren't ready. Check out the section below, on building it

Building

This is a quick description that will work for most people and platforms, but check out BUILD.md for a more complete and customizable installation process

To build kscript, you first need to get a copy of the source code. To get the latest commit, use git clone https://github.com/chemicaldevelopment/kscript. This will clone the repo into a folder called kscript. You can also download a .zip from the GitHub repo, and unzip it.

Then, open a shell (bash, zsh, etc.) in the directory with the source code and follow the instructions below for your platform

On Linux/Unix/MacOS

Requirements:

1. A C compiler that supports C99, although most compilers will work even if they don't fully support C99
2. A make-based build system

Optional Dependencies:

1. The Posix threading library (pthread) * If this is not present, then threading support is emulated and some problems may arise with multi-threaded code
2. The GNU Multiple Precision library (gmp) * If this is not present, then kscript will use an implementation of a subset of GMP routines. This means operations with large integers will be slower
3. The GNU Readline library (readline) * If this is not present, then the kscript interpreter will not have auto-completion and advanced line-editing features
4. The Fastest Fourier Transform in the West (fftw3) * If this is not present, then the implementation of FFT plans may be slower
5. Libav (libav) * If this is not present, then mm won't support nearly as many media formats

For example, you can install these on various platforms:

Debian/Ubuntu/etc.: sudo apt install libpthread-stubs0-dev libgmp-dev libffi-dev libreadline-dev libfftw3-dev libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libavutil-dev libswscale-dev

Now, once you have installed the dependencies you want, you can build the library via:

$ ./configure # give it '--help' to display options
$ make
$ make check # runs the standard tests

On Windows

TODO: I've gotten it to build on Windows, but I need to make it more complete so others can reproduce it

Examples

See the examples/ folder for examples

Hello World

This is the classic Hello World example:

print ("Hello World")