• Documentation
• Discord server: invite link, to discuss the specification of the language and receive help
• Modules

Nota bene: the project is referred as "Ark" and as "ArkScript". The official public name is "ArkScript" since "Ark" is already being used by another language

ArkScript is

• small: the compiler and the virtual machines fit under 8000 lines, but also small in terms of keywords (it has only 10)!
• a scripting language: it's very easy to embed it in your application. The builtin construction is quite easy to understand, so adding your own functions to the virtual machine is effortless
• portable: it produces a bytecode which is run by its virtual machine, like Java but without the OutOfMemoryException
• a functional language: every parameter is passed by value, everything is immutable unless you use mut to define a mutable variable
• powerful: it can handle object-oriented programming in a very elegant way with its closures and explicit captures (see examples/church-encoding)
• promoting functionalities before performances: expressiveness often brings more productivity, but performances aren't bad at all
• easy to compile: it takes less than 200ms to compile and check a complex code with a lot of branches and sub-branches of 200 lines.
• a Lisp-like, but with fewer parentheses: [...] is expanded to (list ...) and {} to (begin ...). More shorthands will come in the future.
• extensible: it is very easy to create a C++ module to use in the language

Also it has:

• a REPL with autocompletion and coloration
• a growing standard library, composed of ArkScript (under lib/std/) and C++ (under lib/ext/)
• a lot of unit tests, which are ran before every release to ensure everything work as intended
• docker images:
  • stable
  • nightly

(let fibo (fun (n)
    (if (< n 2)
        n
        (+ (fibo (- n 1)) (fibo (- n 2))))))

(print (fibo 28))  # display 317811

# more or less game
(print "More or less game!")

(import "random.arkm")
(import "Math/Arithmetic.ark")

(let number (mod (abs (random)) 10000))
(print number)
(mut value 0)
(mut tries 0)

(mut continue true)

(while continue {
    (set value (toNumber (input "Input a numeric value: ")))

    (if (< value number)
        # then
        (print "More!")
        # else
        (if (= value number)
            # then
            { (print "Bingo!") (set continue false) }
            # else
            (print "Less!")))

    (set tries (+ 1 tries))})

(print "You won in" tries "tries")

More examples are available in the folder examples/.

• First, fork the repository
• Then, clone your fork: git clone [email protected]:username/Ark.git
• Create a branch for your feature: git checkout -b feat-my-awesome-idea
• When you're done, push it to your fork and submit a pull request!

Don't know what to work on? No worries, we have a list of things to do 😉

Who worked on

• the standard library
  • @SuperFola
  • @Natendrtfm
  • @rinz13r
  • @FrenchMasterSword
  • @rstefanic
  • @PierrePharel
  • @Wafelack
• the builtins
  • @SuperFola
  • @rinz13r
  • @PierrePharel
• the REPL
  • @rstefanic
  • @PierrePharel
• the CLI
  • @SuperFola
  • @DontBelieveMe
  • @PierrePharel
• the documentation
  • @SuperFola
  • @OfficePop
  • @PierrePharel
• the language specification
  • @SuperFola
  • @FrenchMasterSword
  • @PierrePharel
• the logo
  • @mazzdevs
• the docker integration
  • @yardenshoham

See Coding guidelines if you want to write ArkScript for the library (see folder lib/std/).

For performance reasons, some functions might be written in C++, in include/Ark/Builtins/Builtins.hpp and src/Builtins/.

• C++17
• CMake >= 3.12
• Visual Studio >= 11 (on Windows)
• On macOS versions prior to 10.15, libc++ lacks filesystem in the standard library.
  • Install a newer compiler using Homebrew: brew install gcc && brew link gcc
  • Pass compiler path to cmake in the build step: -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=/usr/local/bin/g++-9

Libs already included:

• CLIPP, MIT licence
• termcolor, BSD (3-clause) licence

Different CMake switches are available to customize the build:

• -DARK_BUILD_EXE to generate an executable, defaults to Off, building a shared library
• -DARK_ENABLE_SYSTEM to enable sys:exec (execute shell commands without restrictions), defaults to On
• -DARK_PROFILER to enable the coz profiler, defaults to Off
• -DARK_PROFILER_COUNT to count every creation/copy/move of the internal value type, defaults to Off
• -DARK_SCOPE_DICHOTOMY to activate the dichotomic mode of the scope, defaults to Off

# first, clone it
~$ git clone --depth=50 --branch=dev https://github.com/ArkScript-lang/Ark.git
~/Ark$ cd Ark
~/Ark$ git submodule update --init --recursive
# building Ark
~/Ark$ cmake . -Bbuild -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DARK_BUILD_EXE=On
~/Ark$ cmake --build build --config Release
# installing Ark (might need administrative privileges)
~/Ark$ cmake --install build --config Release
# running
~/Ark$ ark --help
DESCRIPTION
        ArkScript programming language

SYNOPSIS
        ark -h
        ark -v
        ark --dev-info
        ark -e <expression>
        ark -c <file> [-d]
        ark -bcr <file>
        ark <file> [-d] [-L <lib_dir>] [-f(fac|no-fac)] [-f(ruv|no-ruv)]

OPTIONS
        -h, --help                  Display this message
        -v, --version               Display ArkScript version and exit
        --dev-info                  Display development information and exit
        -e, --eval                  Evaluate ArkScript expression
        -c, --compile               Compile the given program to bytecode, but do not run
        -d, --debug...              Increase debug level (default: 0)
        -bcr, --bytecode-reader     Launch the bytecode reader
        -L, --lib                   Set the location of the ArkScript standard library   
        -f(fac|no-fac)              Toggle function arity checks (default: ON)
        -f(ruv|no-ruv)              Remove unused variables (default: ON)

LICENSE
        Mozilla Public License 2.0

See https://github.com/ArkScript-lang/benchmarks

You can find a snake created in ArkScript in the folder examples/games/snake (run it from there, otherwise it won't find the font and the sprites ; you won't need to install the SFML).

Controls are the arrows (left, right, up and down), the game closes itself when you successfully collect the 3 apples.

Huge thanks to those people for their donations to support the project:

• TheCountVEVO
• llexto

This project was inspired by gameprogramingpatterns and ofan lisp.cpp

Copyright (c) 2019-2020 Alexandre Plateau. All rights reserved.

This ArkScript distribution contains no GNU GPL code, which means it can be used in proprietary projects.