SiCL - A Simple Command Language

NEM 2014-12-12: SiCL is the "Simple" Command Language (or Silly depending on your point of view). It is a highly experimental pre-processor that translates a language that is a bit like Tcl with a more conventional syntax into equivalent Tcl scripts.

Update: Version 0.3 fixes a couple of bugs and adds support for lambda expressions.

A SiCL script is a sequence of commands separated by newlines or semicolons (as in Tcl). A command is a sequence of words (not necessarily separated by whitespace). A word is one of:

A string: foo, 12, 3.145, "foo bar", {foo bar}
A variable reference: $foo, ${foo} (Note: no arrays)
A sub-command: [foo bar]
An expression enclosed in parentheses: (foo)
A block of SiCL commands starting with a colon and ending either with a newline, or (if a newline immediately follows the colon) a sequence of three or more dashes (---).

A SiCL expression is one of:

A string (as above) - this evaluates to itself
A mathematical expression - compiles to [expr {...}]
A list of expressions separated by commas: e.g., (x, y, sin(0.5)*2) --> [list x y [expr {sin(0.5)*2}]]]
A dictionary of expressions separated by commas, where key/value pairs are separated by colons: (x: 1, y: 2) --> [dict create x 1 y 2]
A lambda expression of the form: args -> body --> [list ::apply $args $body [namespace current]]]

Examples:

# Avoid problems with double-substitution:
proc when(cond, then, (_else: "else"), (else: "")): if {$cond} $then else $else
for {set x 0} {$x < 10} {incr x}:
    when ($x < 5): puts "Small"
    when ($x > 5):
        puts "Big"
    ---
    when ($x == 5):
        puts "Just right"
    ---
---

# Functional programming
proc map(f, xs): lmap x $xs: uplevel 1 [linsert $f end $x]
map (x -> $x*2) {1 2 3 4 5}

Here is the code. This is very experimental. It may break your programs and/or your mind.

Source code is now available from: http://chiselapp.com/user/nem/repository/sicl/home as a fossil repository to ease further development.

Category Language