/grok

Programming language

Primary LanguageScala

Grok

Simplicity should not come at the cost of expressiveness.

About

Grok attempts to uniquely combine functional style type systems with imperative style syntax. In particular, Grok has a fully algebraic type system that achieves polymorphism purely through ad-hoc polymorphism; while allowing mutable variables and static evaluation.

Building

Building grok requires sbt 0.13.6 or higher and git:

Building Grok is simple:

$ git clone https://github.com/bjh83/grok.git
$ cd grok
$ sbt compile

The first time you run sbt, it will download all needed dependencies; this may take a little while.

Running

Since grok is still very much under development, it is easiest to execute it from the sbt terminal:

$ sbt "run [flags] [path_to_source]"

Where flags are optionally one of the following:

--version
--compiler_type=default
--compiler_type=interpreter
--compiler_type=tac
--compiler_type=vm_compiler

Version prints out the current version of the compiler, while compiler_type tells the compiler what configuration to use:

  • default: is the same as not specifying anything; it is also the same as the tac option
  • interpreter: interprets the AST directly (NOTE: this option is only partially supported at the moment).
  • tac: prints out the generated Three Address Code (TAC).
  • vm_compiler: interprets the generated TAC

Installing

If you are so inclined to install this on you system, you must first have java 1.7 or higher installed on your machine. Next you must execute the following command.

$ sbt assembly

Now create a symlink to grok.sh in a desired bin folder:

$ ln -s /path/to/grok.sh /usr/bin/grok

You may now execute grok with the following command:

$ grok [flags] [path_to_source]

Where flags and path_to_source are the same as described under the section Running.

Note: you probably do not want to install grok on your system. Grok is currently under development and is SUPER PRE-ALPHA and so it is expected to change a very great deal in the near future. You have been warned.

Language Specification

Grok now has a complete language specification for its current version (lambdas are not currently in the spec, but are mostly supported).

Errata

Grok is currently under development and as such is in a constant state of flux. Expect regular breaking changes.

In particular, there are a number of things which do not work:

  • Methods: are not currently supported.
  • Function Closures: are not currently supported.
  • Implicit Union Conversion: does not currently work.