oliver-ni / 05ab1e

A concise stack-based golfing language

A short introduction

05AB1E is a golfing language. If the name 05AB1E was interpreted as a hexadecimal number and converted to base64, it would result into "Base". I wanted to make a language which has an advantage in base conversion, but now it is more of an overall language.

You can try this language out yourself at: Try it online!. This interpreter is provided by DennisMitchell.

All existing commands can be found at Info.txt or at the Commands Wiki page.

So, what exactly is a golfing language?

A golfing language is a language that specializes in code golf. That is a kind of programming competition where you strive to achieve the shortest byte count from all the participating languages.

What does a program look like?

The basics

A program in 05AB1E is just like any other program, it is stored in a file and then run with osabie.py. The python file will interpret the given file as 05AB1E code. A very easy to understand program is:

"Hello, World!"

Which can be tried here. This is a normal Hello, World! program. Of course, the last quotation mark is a bit redundant, so we can actually leave that out. The interpreter will automatically complete the string. That means that the following program:

"Hello, World!

is also a valid Hello, World! program.

Stack memory

05AB1E uses a stack memory model. That means that everything will be operated using the stack. For example, if we want to multiply 2 different numbers, let's say 4 and 5, we can do the following in pseudo-stack language:

PUSH 4
PUSH 5
MULTIPLY

After the first two commands, the top two elements of the stack are 4 and 5. The multiply command consumes two elements and produces one in return. So, after the multiply command, the stack only contains the number 20. So, how do we do this in 05AB1E?

To push an integer, just place any arbitrary integer in the progam. For example, if we want to push the number 4, this would be our program:

4

05AB1E will scan the literal up till no more digits are found and pushes that onto the stack. To push a new number, just add another number after the first number, separated by a no-op (like a space). For example:

4 15

This pushes the numbers 4 and 15. To multiply both numbers, just add the multiply command (or any other command from Info.txt):

4 15*

You can try that here. You can see that it outputs 60.

Stack memory - part 2

We now have a basic understanding of the stack model, we can continue to what exactly gets printed. Normally, when nothing is printed, the top of the stack gets printed. In the following example:

1 2 3 4 5

only the number 5 gets printed. If something else gets printed before the program terminates, the top of the stack is not printed automatically anymore.

Now you have a basic understanding of how 05AB1E works! Tutorials will be added soon...

How do I use it?

05AB1E is originally written in Python 3. That means that you need to have Python 3.4 or a later version in order to use this. 05AB1E doesn't make use of any external libraries outside the normal Python package, so Python 3.4 is the only thing you need.

Create a new file where you want to store your program in (like test.abe). Normally, an 05AB1E file ends with .abe, but any other file extension can also be used. To run it, do the following:

[path to Python 3] [path to osabie.py] [path to 05AB1E program]

For example:

> python34.exe osabie.py test.abe

Or a more official way (whereas inputs is a file with all inputs):

> python34.exe osabie.py test.abe < inputs

If run without the inputs file, the 05AB1E program reads the input from STDIN.

In addition, you can append the following arguments before running the 05AB1E file:

Argument	Information
-d or --debug	Activates the debug flag. After each command is run, an update will be shown to STDIN with the current stack, current command and additionally subprograms for loops, etc.
-s or --safe	Activates the safe mode. Web access, file access and commmands that can potentially harm a system will be restricted and skipped while executing the file.
-c or --osabie	Reads the file as a file with a 05AB1E encoding. If this flag is not activated, the file will be read as a normal UTF-8 file.
-t or --time	Times the duration of executing the program. Given in seconds.
-e or --eval	Evaluates the given string as 05AB1E code.