How does RGBLang work?

A basic compiler is built for RGBLang, which converts the text you enter into a syntax tree.

When the compiler can’t create a tree from your input, this is considered a syntax error.

When valid, it loops over the tree and performs type-checking. This procedure errors when you try to assign a constant variable, try to access a variable that doesn’t exist, add things together that don’t make sense etc.

The compiler code is located here

After this, it will converted to be run on a specific platform, see below.

Javascript (browser)

When using the online editor, the tree gets transformed to javascript, which is then directly executed by your webbrowser. Check out the browser-simulation code here and here.

Example

r = sin(timer / 10)
g = 0
b = 0

Gets converted into javascript:

(mem, funcs)=>{mem.r=funcs.sin((mem.timer/10))&0xff;mem.g=0&0xff;mem.b=0&0xff;}

Bytecode (ledstrip controller)

When uploading, the server compiles your code into bytecode. This is your code represented in bytes. This can then be understood by the ledstrip controller by looping over it. Look here to see how the controller interprets this bytecode.

Example

r = sin(timer / 10)
g = 0
b = 0

Gets converted into bytecode:

00000000000000000000000000000000010800030a1340080000030008010003000802000f (hex representation of bytecode)

Decompilation:

00000000000000000000000000000000    contains initialized variables
010800      push 8                  pushes integer at location 8 on the stack (timer variable)
030a        pushConst8 10           pushes constant 10 onto the stack
13          div                     pops 2 integers off the stack and pushes the division
40          sin                     pushes sine of popped value
080000      pop8 0                  pops top of stack to location 0 in memory (r variable)
0300        pushConst8 0            pushes constant 0
080100      pop8 1                  pops top of stack to location 1 in memory (g variable)
0300        pushConst8 0            pushes constant 0
080200      pop8 2                  pops top of stack to location 1 in memory (b variable)
0f          halt                    stops program execution