1 .TH baum 1 "2008-03-01" "baum 0.3"

2 .SH NAME

3 baum \- an esoteric programming language

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5

6

7 .SH SYNOPSIS

8 .B baum

9 [\-v]\ <file>

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11

12

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.

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17 Source code is a representation of a tree in which every node is a command or data.

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19 baum is only an experiment and the functionality is (currently) very restricted.

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24 .SH OPTIONS

25

26 .TP

27 .BI \-v

28 Verbose output (All verbose output goes to stderr)

29

30 .TP

31 .BI \-\-help

32 Print usage information

33

34 .TP

35 .BI \-\-version

36 Print version information

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41

42

43 .SH CONCEPT

44

45 baum programs are represented as nodes in a tree structure. Nodes are of specific kind and contain a value.

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47 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.

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49 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.

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51 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.

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53 Nodes can modify the tree, but should do this only on it's brothers or better only through it's rightmost brother.

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55

56

57 .SH SOURCE CODE

58

59 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.

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61 Empty lines and everything vom the hash symbol (`#') to the end of the line is ignored.

62

63 .B An example that echoes (and returns) `42':

64

65 .nf

66 # comment

67 print(0)

68 sum(0) #comment

69 number(40)

70 number(2)

71 .fi

72

73

74 .SH NODES

75

76 .TP

77 .B input

78 Reads a number from standard input which is treated as ASCII value. It inserts a number node with this value as last brother. Returns 0 always.

79

80 .TP

81 .B number

82 Executes it's leftmost son. Returns the internal value.

83

84 .TP

85 .B print

86 Prints the return value of it's leftmost son. Ether as char (if the internal value is 99), or as number otherwise. Returns the return value of the leftmost son (passes through).

87

88 .TP

89 .B sum

90 Executes all of it's sons. Returns the sum of their return values.

91

92 .TP

93 .B times

94 Copies everything below the node and pastes it as last brother(s). Returns 0 always.

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100

101 .SH ERRORS

102

103 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.

104

105 .TP

106 .BI 1

107 common error

108

109 .TP

110 .BI 3

111 no or more than one source file given

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113 .TP

114 .BI 4

115 invalid node

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117 .TP

118 .BI 5

119 indention over more than one level

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121 .TP

122 .BI 6

123 node name too long, or no value given

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125 .TP

126 .BI 126

127 invalid command line options

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129

130

131 .SH BUGS

132 Please report if you find some.

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134

135 .SH CREDITS

136 Ju developed the idea of

137 .B baum

138 with me in a conversation. Actually it was his idea to use the tree as basic structure.

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141

142 .SH AUTHOR

143 markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de> and julian forster