README.md

Lispy

“One can make all kinds of Lisps using simple household items. If one were so inclined.”

A tiny Lisp(ish) interpreter based on @orangeduck's excellent tutorial, with basic support for integers, strings, conditionals, user-defined vars and functions. No macros and TCO yet, but a man can dream...

Setup

Clone the repo and run:

$ make run

If all is well, you'll wind up in a simple REPL:

>>

Hit Ctrl-D to exit.

To clean the build:

$ make clean

Usage

With formalities out of the way, let's take it for a spin.

The outermost sexpr allows parens to be omitted, so these are equivalent:

(+ 1 (* 2 3))  ; => 7
+ 1 (* 2 3)    ; => 7

Quoted expressions are denoted by braces:

(+ 1 2 3)       ; => 6
{+ 1 2 3}       ; => {+ 1 2 3}
eval {+ 1 2 3}  ; => 6

To load a source file:

load "hello.lsp"

To define and call a function:

-> {n} {* 2 n}              ; => a lambda that doubles its arg
(-> {n} {* 2 n}) 5          ; => 10, calling it directly
def {dbl} (-> {n} {* 2 n})  ; => bind symbol to lambda
dbl 5                       ; => 10

A utility library will be loaded by default, providing some common functionality. Let's check out some of that goodness.

Function definition reloaded, now with a friendlier syntax:

defn {dbl n} {* 2 n}
dbl 5  ; => 10

You can slice and dice...

def {array} (range -3 3)
nth 5 array               ; => 2
apply + (but-last array)  ; => -3
split 2 (reverse array)   ; => {{3 2} {1 0 -1 -2 -3}}

filter and query...

all? num? array          ; => 1 (true)
len (filter odd? array)  ; => 4
drop-while neg? array    ; => {0 1 2 3}

map and fold...

sum (map sqr array)  ; => 28

zip array (map (-> {n} {abs (* 2 n)}) array)
; => {{-3 6} {-2 4} {-1 2} {0 0} {1 2} {2 4} {3 6}}

compose and partially apply functions...

(comp dec abs (apply -)) array  ; => 5

defn {add n incr} {+ n incr}
def {++} (add 1)
++ 0  ; => 1

and so on.

Type the name of the function to get its definition printed:

first  ; => (-> {l} {eval (head l)})

and make sure to check the prologue for more goodies.

Thanks for dropping by! o/