kinx: A C repository from Kray-G

Note: Now this Kinx is a little pending the development. A near future this could be freezed, but I am still sitting on the fence. As a successor, Kilite is available but it's under construction so far. You can see the new product of Kilite here, and check it out.

Looks like JavaScript, feels like Ruby, and it is a script language fitting in C programmers.

Topics

Official Release 1.1.1 is now available! See Releases.
- Package Manager has been supported since the version 1.1.0.
- The main central repository for packages at https://github.com/Kray-G/kinx-package-repository.
Now the Kinx is supporting the platform of x86-64 Windows and Linux only, because I have no environment.
- If you are interested in other platforms, please check here.
See ChangeLog.md about the history of this project.

Introduction

Ruby is a major scripting language. Also Python is. However, either of these syntax is NOT familiar to C programmers. This Kinx is a script language for people who want C-like syntax.

The Concept

The concept is, "Looks like JavaScript, feels like Ruby, and it is a script language fitting in C programmers."

Looks like JavaScript ... It provides C family syntax.
Feels like Ruby ... Enjoy programming.
Fitting in C programmers ... It is easy to use for many programmers.

"C programmers" in this context means "almost all programmers." Because I think almost all programmers have used or known C language at least. And "Providing C Like Syntax" as well also means "friendly for almost all programmers."

Features

Basic Features

Mainly there are features below.

Dynamic typing and Object-Oriented programming.
Classes and inheritance, Higher order functions, Lexical scoping, Closures, Fiber, Garbage Collection, and so on.
Native function by JIT compiling supported with some limitations. Very fast.
Useful libraries are provided as All-In-One.
REPL is provided by default.
Debugger is available and embedded in Kinx. Use the option --debug and you can run a script with debugger.
Useful Testing System named as SpecTest. It is designed to not only for Kinx but also for any other products.
Package Manager has been officially supported since the version 1.1.0.

Standard Libraries

The script language is a platform as a glue between libraries. This means a language itself is not a main purpose, it should be just a backend or supporter due to use a library you want to use.

Therefore another design goal for this language is to be extendable, lightweight, and easy to use for user's own purpose. Kinx will be able to be the best platform for any libraries which you want to use or your own library.

Kinx is including useful libraries below in the standard package as All-In-One.

Zip ... Zip/Unzip with not only zip password but also AES password.
Xml ... Supporting XML as DOM structure.
libCurl ... Only HTTP has been already implemented.
SSH ... SSH login and you can execute commands.
Socket ... Supporting a simple TCP/UDP socket.
Iconv ... Converting between text encodings.
SQLite3 ... Database class as a usuful library wapping SQLite3.
Regular Expression ... Regular expression is of course supported.
Parser Combinator ... Exactly original implementation of Parser Combinator named as Parsek like Parsec.
PDF ... PDF core library based on HaruPDF.
JIT ... JIT library for various platforms by an abstracted assembler library.

Making libraries improvement and extension is one of the main purpose of this language.

Language Details

There is Quick Reference Guide. Please see Quick Reference Guide for your understanding.

For the detail of Kinx specification, see Kinx Specification. This document is also including Test Codes. I named this system as SpecTest. See SpecTest for detail.

And you can try it on the REPL. See REPL for detail.

Motivation

I guess almost all programmers want a lightweight scripting language with C style syntax because it is simple, easy, and familiar to them. C style syntax is the most fitting in the programmer's hand, I guess.

Any other languages are also all good solution, but for me...

Ruby is great. But it is too far from C style. Too many typing for end.
Python is also great. But it is too far from C style. Indentend style is a little cramped and too many typing for self.
JavaScript is very good for me, and it is a C like style. But node.js is too heavy.

What is C Style Syntax?

Sharing the definition of C Style Syntax, it is below.

Block is a scope between { and }
Mostly freedom style of indent.
Fallthrough in switch case. ... switch-when is now supported without fallthrough by default.
- C programmers will feel it to continue to the next case when there is no break statement.
etc.

There are a lot of pros and cons about switch-case. Therefore now the followings are supported instead of switch-case. You can use it as it depends on your situation.

If you want to do it without break, you can use switch-when instead for that purpose.
You can also use case-when as an expression with a pattern matching syntax.

As C style Syntax family there are C, C++, Java, JavaScript, C#, and so on. If you agree, or if you don't agree, anyway push the star.

Getting Started

Supported Platforms

Currently this project supports x86-64 Windows and Linux only. I really want someone to support any other platforms if possible because I do not have any other platform environment. Please see detail here

How to Build

IMPORTANT
If you faced a crash of the kinx executable, please try make clean all to re-build everything. Sometimes changing a structure in common header will cause a crash because dependencies in Makefile are imcomplete.

Windows

On Windows, tested with Visual Studio 2017 Express Edition with x64. To build, see below.

$ make.cmd

Note that on Windows, compiling ir_exec.c takes long time around 15 minutes, so please wait for it. It is no problem on Linux because it is around 2 or 3 minutes.

Linux

On Linux, tested with gcc 7.4.0 with x64. To build, see below.

$ make

How to Support a Platform

If anyone wants to support some other platform, the followings have to be done.

Now utliity/kmyacc is prepared only for x86-64 Windows and Linux.
- About this, I did commit directly the generated parser file by yacc. Use those files directly in Makefile.
Kinx needs some dependent libraries. The libraries as a source code are directly managed under src/extlib, and the other libraries which is provided as a binary is managed on this repository. That repository is registered as a submodule under src/extlib.
- Now there are 6 libraries provided as a binary.
  - libcurl, libharu, libssh2, libxml2, openssl, and zip(minizip).
- How to add components you want to use.
  - For source code libraries, use Makefile suited to the platform that you want to use, and add it into the build mechanism.
  - For binary libraries, added components which you have built for the platform you want to support to this repository. And then, do pull request on that repository and update submodule's commit on this Kinx repository.

How to Install

Windows or Linux

You can download an installer from Releases page.

by Scoop (for Windows users)

Or you also can install by scoop. Type the below:

scoop bucket add kinx https://github.com/Kray-G/kinx # only needed the first time
scoop install kinx

How to Execute

Usage

# For Windows
$ kinx.exe [options] [<script-file>]

# For Linux
$ ./kinx [options] [<script-file>]

Options

Here is current available options.

Option	Description
`-h`	Display help.
`-v`, `--version`	Display version number.
`-d`	Dump compiled code.
`-D`	Display AST.
`-i`	Input source code from stdin.
`-c`	Check the syntax only without any executions.
`-q`	Do quiet mode without displaying warning & error, and exit code 0 means successful.

`--debug`	Debugger mode and run with a debugger.
`--dot`	Output the dump by .dot format.
`--with-native`	Dump compiled code of a native function. Use with `-d`.
`--native-call-max-depth`	Specify the max depth to call a native function. 1024 by default.
`--case-threshold`	Specify the max interval between case's integer value. 16 by default.

`--exec:repl`	Run the Repl.
`--exec:spectest`	Run the SpecTest.

Examples

You will think it is like JavaScript.

Fibonacci

function fib(n) {
    if (n < 3) return n;
    return fib(n-2) + fib(n-1);
}

System.println("fib(34) = ", fib(34));

Factorial

function fact(n) {
    if (n < 1) return 1;
    return n * fact(n-1);
}

System.println(fact(5000));

Class

class Example(i) {
    public get() { return i; }
}

System.println(new Example(100).get());

Native

What is Native function?

Remember the fibonacci function above. That is a simple fibonacci function and execute it with time measurement like below.

$ time ./kinx examples/fib.kx
fib(34) = 9227465

real    0m0.718s
user    0m0.609s
sys     0m0.000s

Replace function to native. That's all.

native fib(n) {
    if (n < 3) return n;
    return fib(n-2) + fib(n-1);
}

System.println("fib(34) = ", fib(34));

Let's execute it and measure it!

$ time ./kinx examples/native_fib.kx
fib(34) = 9227465

real    0m0.167s
user    0m0.063s
sys     0m0.016s

How nice it is around 10x faster.

But you have to know the limitations with native function. See Native Functions for details.

REPL

You can use REPL (Read-Eval-Print-Loop) with the option of --exec:repl as below.

$ ./kinx --exec:repl

Here is a demo animation. REPL has an autocomplete by [TAB] key. See REPL for details.

Have fun with it!

Debugger

Debugger is now available. Run with the --debug option.

$ ./kinx --debug script.kx

Here is a sample screen shot. See Kinx Debugger for details.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details. About the licenses of internal used libraries, follow the licenses of each library. See docs/licenses folder for details.