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Copyright (C) 2011 - 2015 Wang Renxin. All rights reserved.

Why are existing script interpreters so complex? Why is it so difficult to integrate with them? Why not try MY-BASIC today! Script should be simple and enjoyable.

Build status

Build Status

Development status

  • Class support under development

Contents

Introduction

MY-BASIC is a lightweight cross-platform easy extendable BASIC interpreter written in pure C with about 10,000 lines of source code. Its grammar is similar to structured BASIC. 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. It's able to easily combine MY-BASIC with an existing project in C, C++, Objective-C, etc. Script driven can make your projects more powerful, elegant and neat.

Main features

  • It is totally free to use MY-BASIC for individual or commercial purpose under the MIT license
  • Written in clean ANSI C, source code is portable for a dozen of platforms
  • With most common BASIC syntax
  • Lightweight (within memory usage less than 128KB) and fast
  • Case-insensitive tokenization
  • Integer, float point, string, boolean, user defined data types, etc. with array support
  • Standard numeric functions, and standard string functions
  • Referenced usertype support
  • Collection implementation and manipulation functions for LIST and DICT
  • Automatic releasing of referenced objects (list, dictionary, referenced usertype, etc.) benefited from Reference Counting and Garbage Collection
  • Multiple file support by IMPORT statement
  • Structured user customizable sub routine definition by DEF/ENDDEF support, including tail recursion optimization
  • Structured IF-THEN-ELSEIF-ELSE-ENDIF support
  • Structured FOR-TO-STEP-NEXT/WHILE-WEND/DO-UNTIL support
  • GOTO/GOSUB-RETURN support
  • Debug APIs
  • Customizable memory pool
  • 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 projects in C, C++, Objective-C, etc.
  • It's able to learn how to build an interpreter from scratch with MY-BASIC
  • It's able to build your own dialect easily based on MY-BASIC
  • More features/modules under developing

Script at a glance

Come along with a traditional "hello world" script in MY-BASIC:

print "What is your name: "
input n$

def foo(a, b)
	return a + " " + b + " by " + n$ + "."
enddef

print foo("Hello", "world");

Read the MY-BASIC Quick Reference (especially the "Programming with BASIC" section) to get more details about how to program in MY-BASIC.

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. Or you could make a build as follow.

  • Open the Visual Studio solution my_basic.sln on Windows to build an executable
  • Open the Xcode solution my_basic_mac.xcodeproj on OS X to build an OS X executable
  • If you are not using VS or Xcode, use the makefile with a "make" toolchain to build an interpreter binary according to your own platform

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

  1. Retrieve at least core and shell folders for minimum build
  2. Setup your compile toolchain configuration
  3. Use your compiler to compile core/my_basic.c and shell/main.c, including core/my_basic.h is required for both source files, then link up your own executable

The standalone interpreter supports three modes.

  • Execute the binary directly without arguments to enter MY-BASIC interactive mode
  • Pass a file path to the binary to load and run that script file
  • Pass an argument -e followed by an expression to evaluate and print it, eg. -e "2 * (3 + 4)"

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 a project, please see MY-BASIC Quick Reference.

Wiki

Most of the fundamental topics are mentioned in the MY-BASIC Quick Reference. There are some other scattered topics besides these aspects, such as the desine principle, machinism behind MY-BASIC, effective practice, etc; they are issued in the Wiki.

References

You can support MY-BASIC development with a donation:
paypal