ShortLang

A programming language designed for code golfing

ShortLang Documentation

Welcome to the official documentation for ShortLang, a fast and concise interpreted programming language designed for code golfing. ShortLang is implemented in Rust and boasts a performance that is 5 times faster than Python.

Table of Contents

1. Basic Data Types
2. Hello World
3. Operators
4. Variables
5. Arrays
6. Functions
   • Inline Function
   • Multiline Function
7. Comments
8. Conditional Statements
9. Loops

Basic Data Types

• int
• float
• bool
• array
• nil

Hello World

To print "Hello World" to the standard output with a newline, use:

$"Hello World"

If you want to print without a newline, use:

$$"Hello World"

ShortLang provides print and println functions in the standard library for the same purpose.

For the sake of readability, we'll use print and println in the examples.

Operators

Variables

Variables can be created without a semicolon. For example:

var_name = value

number = 42
$("The number is: " + number)

Arrays

The following code shows an example array

fibonacci = [0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13]

$("5th fibonacci number is " + fibonacci[5])

Functions

Inline Function

Similar to lambda function in python

add a b: a + b
println(add(10, 20)) // prints 30

Multiline Function

add a b: {
  println("You are adding: " + a + " and " + b)
  a + b
}

println(add(10, 20))

The last expression in a multiline function is the return value.

You can also use & explicitly to denote the return value, if it is not at the end of the function.

max a b: {
    a > b ? &a : &b
    $"this line won't be printed"
} 

Comments

Comments start with //.

Conditional Statements

Ternary operator for if-else:

a = 1
a == 1 ? println("The expression is true") : println("The expression is false")

Block execution:

true ? {
    // code here will be executed
} : {
   // if condition is false
}

The else block can be removed

a == 10 ? println("a is equal to 10")

Loops

ShortLang currently supports a while loop:

>. condition {
    // code to be executed while the condition is true
}

i = 0
>. i < 10 {
    $("Value of i is: " + i)
    i ++
}

This code prints:

Value of i is: 0
Value of i is: 1
Value of i is: 2
Value of i is: 3
Value of i is: 4
Value of i is: 5
Value of i is: 6
Value of i is: 7
Value of i is: 8
Value of i is: 9

Misc

Factorial function example

factorial x: x < 2 ? 1 : x * factorial(x - 1)
$factorial(30)

Prints

265252859812191058636308480000000