domdavis / colonoscopy

A programming language for all the unused ;'s, {'s and }'s in the world

Colonoscopy

So it seems that semi-colons and braces (;, {, and }) are under threat. New languages are shunning them and their use seems to be dwindling. So what's happening to all those unused characters? We've put them to work, that's what. Introducing Colonoscopy, a Rho′′, among others [NSFW], influenced language designed purely to use up characters that are no longer seen as useful in trendy, modern languages.

Syntax

Colonoscopy is a turing complete language with 8 operators. These operators translate to BF and C as follows:

Symbol	BF	C	Description
;}	+	++ptr;	Move the pointer to the right
;{	-	--ptr;	Move the pointer to the left
;;}	>	++*ptr;	Increment the memory cell under the pointer
;;{	<	--*ptr;	Decrement the memory cell under the pointer
;;;}	.	putchar(*ptr)	Output the character signified by the cell at the pointer
;;;{	,	*ptr=getchar();	Input a character and store it in the cell at the pointer
{{	[	while (*ptr) {	Jump past the matching }} if the cell under the pointer is 0
}}	]	}	Jump back to the matching {{

In addition, each command must be terminated with a semi-colon. Other than EOF, no other characters are allowed in a colonoscopy program. Those are reserved for other languages that think that ;, { and } are too good for them.

Interpreter

An interpreter, written in Go (because irony) is available in this package to allow you to play with Colonoscopy scripts.

go get github.com/domdavis/colonoscopy
go install github.com/domdavis/colonoscopy
colonoscopy <sourcefile>

Convention is that Colonoscopy files use a .cl suffix.

Hello World

The following is an implementation of "Hello World!" written in Colonoscopy:

;;};;;};;;};;;};;;};;;};;;};;;};{{;;};;;};;;};;;};;;};{{;;};;;};;;};;};;;};;;};;;};;};;;};;;};;;};;};;;};;{;;{;;{;;{;;;{;}};;};;;};;};;;};;};;;{;;};;};;;};{{;;{;}};;{;;;{;}};;};;};;;;};;};;;{;;;{;;;{;;;;};;;};;;};;;};;;};;;};;;};;;};;;;};;;;};;;};;;};;;};;;;};;};;};;;;};;{;;;{;;;;};;{;;;;};;;};;;};;;};;;;};;;{;;;{;;;{;;;{;;;{;;;{;;;;};;;{;;;{;;;{;;;{;;;{;;;{;;;{;;;{;;;;};;};;};;;};;;;};;};;;};;;};;;;};

$ colonoscopy example.cl 
Tokenising...done.
Hello World!
Execution complete!

FAQ

Why?

Why not? Also, it helps with learning Go. Also this.

Can I do x in Colonoscopy

It's turing complete, so yes.

Do I want to do x in Colonoscopy?

Probably not.

Should this be considered the reference implementation of Colonoscopy?

Doubtful. I'm not sure the code to read characters from stdin is cross platform, the tokeniser is likely very naive and inefficient, plus I can't be sure it's bug free as I used SDD (Satire Driven Programming) and there is only one manual test. Hell, I don't even know if the install instructions work properly ;) - Appears they do, at least on the Docker image I tried :D

TODO

Converter from Ook!, and other such languages. Maybe a proper compiler. Who knows.

License

Public Domain