earlgrey/lib5/README

Programming language compiling to JavaScript, featuring macros, dynamic typing annotations and pattern matching.

Source code organization
------------------------

location.eg
  Defines the Source and Location classes and a bunch of utility
  functions for highlighting.

lex.eg
  Defines the lexer.
  lex.tokenize{Source} ==> list of tokens

parse.eg
  Operator precedence parsing.
  Note that the following simplifications are applied in this phase:
  * "a with b"      ==> a{b}
  * "foo bar: baz"  ==> foo{bar, baz}
  parse.parse{tokens} ==> raw AST (unexpanded)

expand.eg
  Defines the Scope, Env and Expander classes, which are the basis of
  the macro expander. Core behavior like symbol resolution and
  expansion of #multi and #data nodes are here.

stdenv.eg
  Defines most core macros and control structures.
  * if, while, break, class, each, etc.
  * Whitelist of global variables.
  * Contains the code for a few required shims (e.g. Array.prototype["::check"])

pattern.eg
  Most of the code pertaining to pattern matching is here.

translate-js.eg
  Defines Translator, which takes an expanded AST and produces
  JavaScript code.

earl-grey.eg
  Glues all the parts together in a coherent interface, Generator.

run.eg
  Defines the command-line interface of the earl utility.
  Entry point is the run function.

register.eg
  Import to register earl grey as an extension.


util.eg
  Miscellaneous utilities.

opt.eg
  Defines the hoist function, a minor optimization.

pp.eg
  Pretty-printing, to be removed (probably).


Notes
-----

AST nodes are plain arrays, so you won't find a formal definition
anywhere. Essentially:

Core nodes (produced by parse.parse):
  #symbol{String?}  ==> symbol
  #value{v}         ==> literals (numbers, strings, etc.)
  #multi{...}       ==> [a, b, ...] (at least two elements in []s)
  #data{...}        ==> {...}
  #send{obj, msg}   ==> function calls, field accesses, etc.

Processed nodes (produced during macro expansion in addition to core nodes):
  #array{...}                  ==> create an array
  #object{#array{k1, v1}, ...} ==> create an object from key/value pairs
  #if{test, x, y}              ==> conditionals
  #scope{vars, body}           ==> variable declaration
  #lambda{args, body}          ==> function definition
  #js_while, #js_for, etc.     ==> javascript-specific control structures

Temporary nodes/expansion control
  #macro{fn}         ==> `fn` will be used to expand #send{#macro{fn}, arg}
  #nostep{macro}     ==> Defer macro expansion to later
                         (macro expansion may happen in multiple contexts)
  #parse{str, url}   ==> Instruct EG's expander to parse the code string
                         (useful to implement interpolation in strings)