IMPRAL

Introduction

Originally called TaleCraft Engine Command Processor System and developed for the Talecraft Game Engine (TCGE) by Longor1996, IMPRAL is a simple command processing language, intended for use in a commandline/REPL.

Currently incomplete/still in development. Do not use.

Syntax & Semantics

Command Syntax

The language, like any Lisp does, consists of commands (function calls) stored as lists, where the first item in the list is a symbol, representing the name of the specific command to be evaluated.

A command consists of three (and a half) parts and may contain line breaks:

1. The symbol identifying the command.
   A unique bareword or any of the built-in operators. Neither positional nor named arguments must come before the command identifier.

2. The positional arguments.
   A whitespace separated list of values.

3. The named arguments.
   A whitespace separated list of key=value-pairs; the keys are always barewords.
   Named arguments are required to be written after the positional arguments.
   The only exception to this are continuation commands in the last position.

4. Continuation command. (optional)
   Another command that is an extra positional parameter in the last position, written after a :.

To sum this up:

• Basic Command Syntax: symbol arg1 arg2 … argN kvarg1=val kvarg2=val … kvargN=val
• With continuation: symbol … …: command

Subcommands

Commands can be enclosed in parentheses and be used as arguments for other commands: (symbol …)

Falliable Commands

One may write two commands in succession, separated by an ampersand/&, in which case the latter command will only be executed if the former succeeds, with the result being bound to $$: foo … & bar $$ …

Command Pipes

A sequence of commands can be written as a pipe, in which every command passes it's result ($$) to the next command: players | where $$.health less 50 | heal $$

Literals

A literal is a simple value, like a number, string, boolean, etc. etc.

Following is a list of possible literals:

• Nothing: The absence of a value; written as null.
• Booleans: There is true and false. That's it.
• Numbers: Numbers can be written in a variety of ways...
  • 1337
  • -1
  • 42.69
  • 1.0e-5
  • 0b101010
  • 0xC0FFEE
• Barewords: A bareword is any sequence of characters that consists entirely of letters, digits, _ and -, always starting with at least one letter.
• Strings: Any text enclosed in double-quotes! "Hello, World!"
• Lists: A list can be created in two ways...
  • Trough syntax: [item1, item2, … itemN] (the commas are optional!)
  • By command: list item1 item2 … itemN
• Maps: A map, too, can be created in two ways...
  • Trough syntax: { key1: val1, key2: val2, …, keyN: valN} > There must be one or more , between the key-value pairs; > there may be a , before the }.
  • By command: mmap key1 val1 key2 val2 … keyN valN

Variables

There are several types of variable:

• Global Variables: Written as @NAME.
• Local Variables: Written as $NAME or $NUMBER.
• Result Variable: Written as $$.

Indexing

By using either the ./.?-syntax or the idx/idxn-commands, values may have sub-values.

Exists?

By using the ? postfix-operator, one can test if the given value is null.

Relation

TODO: Specifiy how the relation/relative-to operator should work.

TODO

• [ ] Ranges
• [ ] Units
• [ ] Interpreter