White Space Compiler

WSC is a transpiler from a readable programming language to the esoteric language Whitespace. Built with OCaml.

NOTE: This does not run whitespace programs; it generates them.

Installation

Install OCaml and opam. Install Menhir with

opam install menhir

Build the project with make.

cd <installDirectory>
make

Usage

./main.byte <inputFile.wsr>

This will output a whitespace file with a .ws extension.

Readable Whitespace Language Spec

A .wsr file must contain a main function that has no parameters. This is the entry point and where code execution will start.

Functions

Define a function

function fname(arg1, arg2){
    <statements>
}

Statements

A statement is one of the following:

If

if(<expression>){
    <statements>
}

where expression evaluates to a boolean

If-Else

if(<expression>){
    <statements>
}else{
    <statements>
}

where expression evaluates to a boolean

Expression with semicolon

<expression>;

Break

break;

Loop

loop <expression> {
    <statements>
}

where expression evaluates to a positive integer

While

while(<expression>) {
    <statements>
}

where expression evaluates to a boolean

Do-While

do {
    <statements>
} while(<expression>);

where expression evaluates to a boolean

Print integer

print_int <expression>;

Print character

print_char <expression>;

Read integer

read_int <variable>;

Reads in an integer and saves it to the variable .

Read character

read_char <variable>;

Reads in a character and saves it to the variable .

Return

return <expression>;

Expressions

An expression is one of the following.

Integer literal

Such as 42 or 0x3B or 0o123 or 0b101101

Character literal

Such as 'p' or ' ' or '\n'

Boolean literal

true or false

Variable

Such as x or foo or potato

Assignment

<variable> := <expression>

Example: x := 2 * 2

Arithmetic

<expression> + <expression>
<expression> - <expression>
<expression> * <expression>
<expression> / <expression>
<expression> % <expression>
-<expression>

Where all expressions evaluate to integers.

Parentheses

(<expression>)

Boolean Logic (AND, OR, XOR)

<expression> && <expression>
<expression> || <expression>
<expression> ^ <expression>
! <expression>

Where all expressions evaluate to booleans.

Comparisons

<expression> < <expression>
<expression> <= <expression>
<expression> > <expression>
<expression> >= <expression>
<expression> == <expression>
<expression> != <expression>

Function application

<functionName>(<expression>, <expression>, ...)

Example: double(1) or foo() or factorial(5 + 5)

Example Program

function main(){
    print_int factorial(5);
}

function factorial(n){
    if(n == 0){
        return 1;
    }
    return n * factorial(n-1);
}

More examples can be seen in the test folder.

TODO and limitations

• Boolean short circuiting (and check that booleans work as intended)
• Builtin functions
• Including other files (preprocessor)
• Type checker
• Strings
• Arrays
• Structs / custom objects (to allow for fractions)
• Currently, no optimizations are done by the compiler.

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

Please make sure to test thoroughly.

License

MIT