A++ Interpreter

Implementation of programming language A++

A basic interpreter for A++ language developed by Georg P. Loczewski to illustrate the language. Implemented in C and Perl. Several versions correspond to editions of “Programmierung pur” which is the reference book of the language. There also exists an online demo of the language, though it is not interactive and allows to run only several predefined examples.

Links:

Examples:

Hello, World!:

Example for versions A++ Interpreter

The program output looks as follows: 

-->Hello, World!  
void

(print "Hello, World!")

Factorial:

Example for versions A++ Interpreter

The first expression loads init library which contains all main language constructs (loops, conditional jumps, comparisons etc.). All of them are not included in language core but instead are defined via a limited set of primitives; thus, for example, if construct is defined as follows:: 

(define true   (lambda (x y) 
               x))
(define false  (lambda (x y) 
               y))
(define if     (lambda (b t f) 
               (b t f)))

The second example defines factorial as a recursive function. Note that the language standard defines two kinds of numbers — regular integers with typical arithmetical operations on them and “nominal” zero, one, two, ..., ten with specific operations. Numbers of different types can’t be decoded one into another and are to be used separately; in this case we use regular integers.

The third expression is the main loop, and the fourth one just calls it. print command ends the output with line feed, so overall program output looks as follows: 

-->0
-->! = 
-->1
-->1
-->! = 
-->1
-->2
-->! = 
-->2
-->3
-->! = 
-->6
-->4
-->! = 
-->24
-->5
-->! = 
-->120
...

Factorial values are calculated correctly up to 12!, after that they overflow and are printed as -1. 

(load "app/init.app")

(define factorial (lambda(n)
  (if (equal n 0)
    1
    (* n (factorial (- n 1))))))

(define main
  (lambda(n)
    (while (not (equal n 17))
      (lambda()
        (print n)
        (print "! = ")
        (print (factorial n))
        (define n (+ n 1))))))

(main 0)

Fibonacci numbers:

Example for versions A++ Interpreter

This example uses tail recursion. 

(load "app/init.app")

(define fibonacci (lambda(f1 f2 n)
  (if (equal n 0)
    f1
    (fibonacci f2 (+ f1 f2) (- n 1)))
))

(define main
  (lambda(n)
    (while (not (equal n 16))
      (lambda()
        (print (fibonacci 1 1 n))
        (define n (+ n 1))))))

(main 0)