Litan

Litan is a gradual typed programming language with a C-like syntax. The Compiler and Bytecode-VM can be used as standalones or C++-Library to add scripts to any application.

Hello World

function main() {
    std::println("Hello World");
}

Lamdas and Higher-Order-Functions

Litan has fully-featured lambda expressions and supports higher-order-functions.

function use_lambda(fx) {
    return fx(1, 2);
}

function make_lambda(c) 
    => lambda[c](a, b) => (a + b + c)

function main() {
    std::println(use_lambda(make_lambda(3))); // 6
}

Reflections

Reflections allow you to gather infos about your programm at compile-time.

function main() {
    std::println("Line: " + std::str(reflect(line))); // Line 2
}

Learn more

Structs

Litan uses structs whose members can added or removed dynamically.

function main() {
    var object = std::struct();
    object.foo = 42;
    object.bar = 1337;
    std::println(object.foo);
    std::println(object.bar);
}

Useful Libraries

• Sphinx (Unit test framework)

Build, Use and Install

Requirements

• CMake 3.13 or newer
• A modern C++ compiler with C++20 support
  • Clang++-10 or newer
  • GCC-10 or newer
• stdxx library

Use as Standalone

1. Clone the repository recursively.
2. Run ./build.sh to compile the compiler, vm and everything needed.
   • Note: Clang++ is choosen by default but this can be changed. Just run ./build.sh COMPILER_GOES_HERE in this case.
3. Run ./install.sh to install ltn, ltnc, ltnvm and ltninfo into the /usr/local/bin/ directory.

Use as library

1. Add litan as a submodule to your project.
2. Add stdxx as a submodule to your project.
3. Add the litan subdirectory to your project: e.g. add_subdirectory(libs/litan)
4. Link the library: e.g. target_link_libraries(my_project litan)
5. Include the main header: e.g. #include "libs/litan/Litan.hxx"

Special Thanks

Bob Nystrom: For his great book "Crafting Interpreters" which provided a large portion of the information I needed to realize this project.