## Description
-Mal is an Clojure inspired Lisp interpreter.
+Mal is a Clojure inspired Lisp interpreter.
-Mal is implemented in 25 different languages:
+Mal is implemented in 28 different languages:
* Bash shell
* C
* GNU Make
* mal itself
* MATLAB
+* [miniMAL](https://github.com/kanaka/miniMAL)
+* Nim
* OCaml
* Perl
* PHP
* Ruby
* Rust
* Scala
+* Swift
* Visual Basic.NET
-Mal is a [learning tool](process/guide.md). Each implementation of mal is separated into 11
-incremental, self-contained (and testable) steps that demonstrate core
-concepts of Lisp. The last step is capable of self-hosting (running
-the mal implemenation of mal).
+Mal is a learning tool. See the [make-a-lisp process
+guide](process/guide.md). Each implementation of mal is separated into
+11 incremental, self-contained (and testable) steps that demonstrate
+core concepts of Lisp. The last step is capable of self-hosting
+(running the mal implementation of mal).
The mal (make a lisp) steps are:
* [step7_quote](process/guide.md#step7)
* [step8_macros](process/guide.md#step8)
* [step9_try](process/guide.md#step9)
-* [stepA_interop](process/guide.md#stepA)
+* [stepA_mal](process/guide.md#stepA)
Mal was presented publicly for the first time in a lightning talk at
mal/clojurewest2014.mal for the presentation that was given at the
conference (yes the presentation is a mal program).
+If you are interesting in creating a mal implementation (or just
+interested in using mal for something), please drop by the #mal
+channel on freenode. In addition to the [make-a-lisp process
+guide](process/guide.md) there is also a [mal/make-a-lisp
+FAQ](docs/FAQ.md) where I attempt to answer some common questions.
+
## Building/running implementations
### Bash 4
make -f stepX_YYY.mk
```
+### Nim 0.10.3
+
+Running the Nim implementation of mal requires Nim's current devel branch
+(0.10.3) or later, and the nre library installed.
+
+```
+cd nim
+make
+ # OR
+nimble build
+./stepX_YYY
+```
+
### OCaml 4.01.0
```
matlab -nodisplay -nosplash -nodesktop -nojvm -r "stepX_YYY('arg1','arg2');quit;"
```
+### miniMAL
+
+[miniMAL](https://github.com/kanaka/miniMAL) is small Lisp interpreter
+implemented in less than 1024 bytes of JavaScript. To run the miniMAL
+implementation of mal you need to download/install the miniMAL
+interpreter (which requires Node.js).
+```
+cd miniMAL
+# Download miniMAL and dependencies
+npm install
+export PATH=`pwd`/node_modules/minimal-lisp/:$PATH
+# Now run mal implementation in miniMAL
+miniMAL ./stepX_YYY
+```
+
### Perl 5.8
For readline line editing support, install Term::ReadLine::Perl or
```
cd racket
-./stepX_YYY.rb
+./stepX_YYY.rkt
```
-### Ruby (1.8)
+### Ruby (1.9+)
```
cd ruby
ruby stepX_YYY.rb
```
-### Rust (0.13)
+### Rust (1.0.0 nightly)
The rust implementation of mal requires the rust compiler and build
tool (cargo) to build.
```
cd rust
-# Need patched pcre lib (should be temporary)
-git clone https://github.com/kanaka/rust-pcre cadencemarseille-pcre
-cargo build
-./target/stepX_YYY
+cargo run --release --bin stepX_YYY
```
### Scala ###
scala -classpath target/scala*/classes stepX_YYY
```
+### Swift
+
+The Swift implemenation of mal requires the Swift compiler (XCode) to
+build.
+
+```
+cd swift
+make
+./stepX_YYY
+```
+
### Visual Basic.NET ###
The VB.NET implementation of mal has been tested on Linux using the Mono
## Running tests
-The are nearly 500 generic Mal tests (for all implementations) in the
-`tests/` directory. Each step has a corresponding test file containing
-tests specific to that step. The `runtest.py` test harness uses
-pexpect to launch a Mal step implementation and then feeds the tests
-one at a time to the implementation and compares the output/return
-value to the expected output/return value.
+### Functional tests
+
+The are nearly 500 generic functional tests (for all implementations)
+in the `tests/` directory. Each step has a corresponding test file
+containing tests specific to that step. The `runtest.py` test harness
+launches a Mal step implementation and then feeds the tests one at
+a time to the implementation and compares the output/return value to
+the expected output/return value.
To simplify the process of running tests, a top level Makefile is
provided with convenient test targets.
make test^step7
```
-* To run a specifc step against a single implementation:
+* To run tests for a specifc step against a single implementation:
```
make test^IMPL^stepX
make test^ps^step4
```
+### Self-hosted functional tests
+
+* To run the functional tests in self-hosted mode, you specify `mal`
+ as the test implementation and use the `MAL_IMPL` make variable
+ to change the underlying host language (default is JavaScript):
+```
+make MAL_IMPL=IMPL test^mal^step2
+
+# e.g.
+make test^mal^step2 # js is default
+make MAL_IMPL=ruby test^mal^step2
+make MAL_IMPL=python test^mal^step2
+```
+
+
+### Performance tests
+
+Warning: These performance tests are neither statistically valid nor
+comprehensive; runtime performance is a not a primary goal of mal. If
+you draw any serious conclusions from these performance tests, then
+please contact me about some amazing oceanfront property in Kansas
+that I'm willing to sell you for cheap.
+
+* To run performance tests against a single implementation:
+```
+make perf^IMPL
+
+# e.g.
+make perf^js
+```
+
+* To run performance tests against all implementations:
+```
+make perf
+```
+
+### Generating language statistics
+
+* To report line and byte stastics for a single implementation:
+```
+make stats^IMPL
+
+# e.g.
+make stats^js
+```
+
+* To report line and bytes stastics for general Lisp code (env, core
+ and stepA):
+```
+make stats-lisp^IMPL
+
+# e.g.
+make stats-lisp^js
+```
+
+## Docker test environment
+
+There is a Dockerfile included in the `tests/docker` directory that
+builds a docker image based on Ubuntu Utopic that contains everything
+needed to run tests against all the implementations (except for MATLAB
+which is proprietary/licensed).
+
+Build the the docker image using a provided script. WARNING: this will
+likely take over an hour to build from scratch and use more 3 GB of disk:
+```bash
+./tests/docker-build.sh
+```
+
+Launch a docker container from that image built above. This will
+volume mount the mal directory to `/mal` and then give you a bash
+prompt in the container. You can then run individual mal
+implementations and tests:
+```bash
+./tests/docker-run.sh
+```
+
+You can also specify a command to run within the container. For
+example, to run step2 tests for every implementation (except MATLAB):
+```bash
+./tests/docker-run.sh make SKIP_IMPLS="matlab" test^step2
+```
+
+**Notes**:
+* JVM-based language implementations (Java, Clojure, Scala): you will
+ need to run these implementations once manually first before you can
+ run tests because runtime dependencies need to be downloaded to
+ avoid the tests timing out. These dependencies are download to
+ dot-files in the /mal directory so they will persist between runs.
+* Compiled languages: if your host system is different enough from
+ Ubuntu Utopic then you may need to re-compile your compiled
+ languages from within the container to avoid linker version
+ mismatches.
+
+
## License
Mal (make-a-lisp) is licensed under the MPL 2.0 (Mozilla Public
HCoop / jackhill / mal.git / blobdiff