MeXiCo is an esoteric programming language, and a compiler for the language with the same name, compiling source code to DNS MX records. This also explains the name.
It's greatly inspired by blinry's legit project and brainfuck, and is written in go. This project was born and written on a boring railroad trip from Hamburg to Düsseldorf.
Like some other esoteric programming languages, a MeXiCo machine has a storage of unlimited size, also called infinite tape, and a first-in-last-out stack. It's possible to read from and write to the tape with a movable head. This makes MeXiCo turing-complete.
As stated above, the source code of a MeXiCo program completely resides in MX records. The compiler ensures that generated MX records are RFC-conform. This means, it is possible to deliver MeXiCo source code over a DNS server of your choice, and, using the time-to-live value, cache source code on a DNS resolver of your choice.
Like in the old BASIC days, source code lines are defined by a number at the beginning of a line, sitting in the Priority value of the MX record. Lines which are not filled out are skipped. As a short explanation:
someprogram.esolang.mil IN MX 10 <line 10>
someprogram.esolang.mil IN MX 20 <line 20>
someprogram.esolang.mil IN MX 30 <line 30>
Due to the fact that the payload of a MX records needs to be a FQDN, every command is represented as a subdomain of the domain mexico.invalid., which is obviously non-existent. If a command contains spaces, for example if they carry an argument (push 5), every space is replaced by a minus sign.
Below, you can find the instructions used in the MX records.
| Command | Involves | Consumes Stack | Pushes to Stack | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
left |
Tape Head | 0 | 0 | Moves the tape head one cell to the left |
right |
Tape Head | 0 | 0 | Moves the tape head one cell to the right |
pusht |
Tape, Stack | 0 | 1 | Reads the current cell value and pushes it on top of the stack |
push n |
Stack | 0 | 1 | Pushes the value n to the stack |
pop |
Tape, Stack | 1 | 0 | Pops top stack value to the current cell |
dup |
Stack | 1 | 2 | Duplicates the topmost stack value |
del |
Stack | 1 | 0 | Deletes the topmost stack value, ignoring its value |
eq |
Stack | 2 | 1 | Checks if stack[0] == stack[1]. Pushes 1 to the stack if equal, 0 otherwise |
not |
Stack | 1 | 1 | Inverses stack[0] |
gt |
Stack | 2 | 1 | Checks if stack[0] > stack[1]. Pushes 1 to the stack if greater, 0 otherwise |
lt |
Stack | 2 | 1 | Checks if stack[0] < stack[1]. Pushes 1 to the stack if smaller, 0 otherwise |
add |
Stack | 2 | 1 | Calculates stack[0] + stack[1], and pushes the result to the stack |
sub |
Stack | 2 | 1 | Calculates stack[0] - stack[1], and pushes the result to the stack |
mult |
Stack | 2 | 1 | Calculates stack[0] * stack[1], and pushes the result to the stack |
div |
Stack | 2 | 1 | Calculates stack[0] / stack[1], and pushes the result to the stack |
mod |
Stack | 2 | 1 | Calculates stack[0] % stack[1], and pushes the result to the stack |
read |
Stack | 0 | 1 | Reads a character from the user, and pushes its char value to the stack |
print |
Stack | 1 | 0 | Prints stack[0] as a character |
jmp |
Program Flow, Stack | 1 | 0 | Jumps to the line number specified by stack[0] |
jmpc |
Program Flow, Stack | 2 | 0 | Jumps to the line number specified by stack[0], if stack[1] is not 0. |
Please note that stack[0] refers to the topmost stack value, and stack[i] refers to the i-th stack value.
The syntax of the source code is strongly aligned with the Instructions table above. However, there's a bit of syntactical sugar to make programming in this language enjoyable. Take a look into the examples directory of this repository to get a basic idea of it.
Every line starting with #, // or ; is ignored by the compiler.
You can define labels like this:
// This program reads a character from the user, and subtracts 1 from it, until it is zero.
read
// Let's loop here
LOOP:
push 1
sub
push 0
lt
push LOOP
jmpc
// We're done!
As you can see, labels can be defined with a : after the label name, and it can be used as a value for push. At compile time, it is replaced with the corresponding line number.
There is a reference implementation for the compiler, mexico, and a reference implementation for the interpreter, mexigo. Both can be found in this repository.
Simply run go get github.com/maride/mexico/mexico to get the compiler.
The mexico compiler takes three arguments:
-inputto specify the source code file-outputto specify the output path for the zonefile-baseDomain, the base domain to compile the source code for. This should be the domain you are planning to host the source code on.
For example. to compile the Fibonacci.mxc example for the domain fibonacci.mxc.maride.cc, you could use this command:
./mexico --input ../examples/Fibonacci.mxc --output /srv/zones/fibonacci.mxc.maride.cc --baseDomain fibonacci.mxc.maride.cc
If no problems occurred and the compiler didn't run into an issue, nothing is printed.
Simply run go get github.com/maride/mexico/mexigo to get the interpreter.
The mexigo interpreter takes only one argument - the domain to execute:
./mexigo fibonacci.mxc.maride.cc
This will give you an output similar to this:
> $ ./mexigo fibonacci.mxc.maride.cc
mexigo - the reference interpreter for the mexico esolang!
See github.com/maride/mexico for further information.
2019/12/08 17:22:27 Resolving fibonacci.mxc.maride.cc for MX records
2019/12/08 17:22:27 Found 24 code lines, interpreting them...
'\x02' (2)
'\x03' (3)
'\x05' (5)
'\b' (8)
'\r' (13)
'\x15' (21)
'"' (34)
'7' (55)
'Y' (89)
'\u0090' (144)
'é' (233)
'Ź' (377)
'ɢ' (610)
'ϛ' (987)
'ؽ' (1597)
2019/12/08 17:22:27 Stack is currently 0 entries big
2019/12/08 17:22:27 Tape is currently 2 cells big
Cell 0: 987 (ϛ)
Cell 1: 1597 (ؽ)
2019/12/08 17:22:27 Found no commands after line 24. Stopping.
You can find examples in the examples directory of this repository.
I currently host the Fibonacci.mxc on fibonacci.mxc.maride.cc, means you can run it with mexigo fibonacci.mxc.maride.cc!
I challenge you to write more examples. ;)
I chose to release this project under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.