BareBones

BareBones is a cool interpreter for the "Bare Bones" programming language. It’s pretty straightforward to use, and you can get started right from the command line!

How to Use BareBones

To run your Bare Bones program, just type the command like this:

barebones prog1.bb

If you need to set some initial values for your variables, you can do that too by adding them as extra arguments:

barebones X=37 Y=116 prog1.bb

Initializing Variables

Here’s a neat feature: at the start of your Bare Bones source file, you can initialize variables with non-negative integer values. Just write it like this:

init X = 37;

If you don’t initialize a variable, it will automatically be set to zero. But if you want to skip this auto-initialization, just add the -u option when running your program. Keep in mind that if you try using an uninitialized variable without being clear about it, you'll hit a runtime error.

Output Information

Before running the program, BareBones will print out all initial variable values to standard output. After everything runs successfully, you'll see the final values printed out too!

Optimization Features

You can also optimize your program using the -O command line option. Right now, it focuses on one main optimization technique. If you're using a while loop to add one variable to another while clearing the first one out, the optimizer will recognize that and make it more efficient.

Example Programs

You’ll find two example programs in the "examples" subdirectory. The fibonacci.bb will calculate any number in the Fibonacci sequence while factorial.bb figures out the factorial of a small positive integer.

If you're curious about how to compute six factorials, here's how:

barebones N=6 examples/factorial.bb

What's New in This Release?

• This release makes identifiers case-insensitive.


• The README file now includes a summary of the language.