my-basic/README.md

Copyright (C) 2011 - 2015 Wang Renxin

Introduction

MY-BASIC is a tiny cross-platform easy extendable BASIC interpreter written in pure C with about 6000 lines of source code. Its grammar is similar to structured BASIC in early era, but without line number. It is aimed to be either an embeddable scripting language or a standalone interpreter. The core is pretty light; all in a C source file and an associated header file. You can combine MY-BASIC with an existing C, C++, Objective-C, etc. project easily, scripting driven can make your projects more powerful, elegant and neat.

Main features

• It is free
• Written in clean ANSI C, source code portable
• Most retro BASIC like syntax, without line numbers
• Small (within memory usage less than 128KB) and fast
• Case-insensitive tokenization
• Integer, float point, string, boolean, user defined data types with array support
• IF-THEN-ELSEIF-ELSE-ENDIF support
• FOR-TO-STEP-NEXT/WHILE-WEND/DO-UNTIL support
• GOTO/GOSUB-RETURN support
• Standard numeric functions
• Standard string functions
• Debug APIs
• High expansibility, easy to use APIs, easy to write customized scripting interfaces
• It's able to use it as a standalone interpreter, or integrate it with existing C, C++, Objective-C, etc. projects
• It's able to learn how to build an interpreter from scratch from it
• It's able to build your own dialect based on it
• More features/modules under developing

Interpreter workflow diagram

Installation

Use standalone interpreter binary

This repository contains precompiled binaries for Windows and OS X, it's efficient to download it and have a first impressive playground.

To compile an interpreter binary for your own platform, please see the steps as follow.

• Retrieve at least core and shell folders
• Setup your compile toolchain configuration
• Use your compiler to compile core/my_basic.c and shell/main.c, both require including core/my_basic.h, then link up your own executable

Combine with exist projects

MY-BASIC is cleanly written in a single C source file and an associated header file. Just copy my_basic.c and my_basic.h to your project folder and add them to a build configuration.

You can definitely link with MY-BASIC as a lib as well.

For more details about using MY-BASIC when it's already integrated with exist projects, please see MY-BASIC Quick Reference.

WIKI

• Passes
• Interpreter workflow diagram
• Link with MY-BASIC
• Redirect PRINT and INPUT
• Redefine int_t and real_t
• Use usertype values
• Customize macros
• Write a debugger
• More scripting APIs
• File module
• FAQ

References

• BASIC - Wikipedia
• MY-BASIC Quick Reference

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