baum

view baum.1 @ 43:c7dca4a1dc37

added test programs; added another example program
author meillo@marmaro.de
date Sat, 01 Mar 2008 21:13:12 +0100
parents 233ac9bea4f1
children 0b82169d4129
line source
1 .TH baum 1 "2008-03-01" "baum 0.3"
2 .SH NAME
3 baum \- an esoteric programming language
7 .SH SYNOPSIS
8 .B baum
9 [\-v]\ <file>
13 .SH DESCRIPTION
14 .B baum
15 is an interpreter for the baum programming language which is an experiment to create an esoteric programming language.
17 Source code is a representation of a tree in which every node is a command or data.
19 baum is only an experiment and the functionality is (currently) very restricted.
24 .SH OPTIONS
26 .TP
27 .BI \-v
28 Verbose output (All verbose output goes to stderr)
30 .TP
31 .BI \-\-help
32 Print usage information
34 .TP
35 .BI \-\-version
36 Print version information
43 .SH SOURCE CODE
45 Source code are plain text files with one node per line representing the tree. The indention controls in which level in the tree the node is. Indention can be made with SPACE or with TAB characters. Every character means one level.
47 Empty lines and everything vom the hash symbol (`#') to the end of the line is ignored.
49 .B An example that echoes (and returns) `42':
51 .nf
52 # comment
53 print(0)
54 sum(0) #comment
55 number(40)
56 number(2)
57 .fi
61 .SH CONCEPT
63 baum programs are represented as nodes in a tree structure. Nodes are of specific kind and contain a value.
65 The tree is processed recursive starting at the root node. Every node controls it's sons and should only know them; while most nodes only use their leftmost son.
67 Each node returns a value to it's parent. (The root node returns an exit code to the shell.) The internal value of the node could be used in any useful way, but only inside the node.
69 All values in the language (return values, expected return values and in-node values) should be of the same type, so that every combination of nodes is possible.
71 Nodes can modify the tree, but should do this only on it's brothers or better only through it's rightmost brother.
74 .SH ERRORS
76 You have to keep in mind, that valid programs that run successful can return exit codes different from zero too! Each program returns the return value of the root node to the shell. If you don't want your program doing this, just set a `number(0)' node as root, and put everything else below.
78 .TP
79 .BI 1
80 common error
82 .TP
83 .BI 3
84 no or more than one source file given
86 .TP
87 .BI 4
88 invalid node
90 .TP
91 .BI 5
92 indention over more than one level
94 .TP
95 .BI 6
96 node name too long, or no value given
98 .TP
99 .BI 126
100 invalid command line options
104 .SH BUGS
105 Please report if you find some.
108 .SH CREDITS
109 Ju developed the idea of
110 .B baum
111 with me in a conversation. Actually it was his idea to use the tree as basic structure.
115 .SH AUTHOR
116 markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de> and julian forster