Candran

Candran is a dialect of the Lua programming language which compiles to Lua. It adds a preprocessor and several useful syntax additions.

Candran code example :

#import("lib.thing")
#local debug = args.debug or false

local function debugArgs(func)
	return function(...)
		#if debug then
			for _,arg in pairs({...}) do
				print(arg, type(arg))
			end
		#end
		return func(...)
	end
end

@debugArgs
local function calculate()
	local result = thing.do()
	result += 25
	return result
end

print(calculate())

The language

Preprocessor

Before compiling, Candran's preprocessor is run. It execute every line starting with a # (ignoring whitespace) as Candran code. For example,

#if args.lang == "fr" then
	print("Bonjour")
#else
	print("Hello")
#end

Will output print("Bonjour") or print("Hello") depending of the "lang" argument passed to the preprocessor.

The preprocessor has access to the following variables :

• candran : the Candran library table.
• output : the preprocessor output string.
• import(module[, autoRequire]) : a function which import a module. This is equivalent to use require(module) in the Candran code, except the module will be embedded in the current file. autoRequire (boolean, default true) indicate if the module should be automaticaly loaded in a local variable or not. If true, the local variable will have the name of the module.
• include(filename) : a function which copy the contents of the file filename to the output.
• print(...) : instead of writing to stdout, print(...) will write to the preprocessor output. For example, #print("hello()") will output hello().
• args : the arguments table passed to the compiler. Example use : withDebugTools = args["debug"].
• and every standard Lua library.

Syntax additions

After the preprocessor is run the Candran code is compiled to Lua. The Candran code adds the folowing syntax to Lua :

New assignment operators

• var += nb
• var -= nb
• var *= nb
• var /= nb
• var ^= nb
• var %= nb
• var ..= str

For example, a var += nb assignment will be compiled into var = var + nb.

Decorators

Candran supports function decorators similar to Python. A decorator is a function returning another function, and allows easy function modification with this syntax :

@decorator
function name(...)
	...
end

This is equivalent to :

function name(...)
	...
end
name = decorator(name)

The decorators can be chained. Note that Candran allows this syntax for every variable, not only functions.

The library

Command-line usage

The library can be used standalone :

• lua candran.lua

  Display the information text (version and basic command-line usage).

• lua candran.lua <filename> [arguments]

  Output to stdout the filename Candran file, preprocessed (with arguments) and compiled to Lua.

  arguments is of type --somearg value --anotherarg anothervalue ....

  • example uses :

    lua candran.lua foo.can > foo.lua

    preprocess and compile foo.can and write the result in foo.lua.

    lua candran.lua foo.can --verbose true | lua

    preprocess foo.can with verbose set to true, compile it and execute it.

Library usage

Candran can also be used as a normal Lua library. For example,

local candran = require("candran")

local f = io.open("foo.can")
local contents = f:read("*a")
f:close()

local compiled = candran.make(contents, { lang = "fr" })

load(compiled)()

Will load Candran, read the file foo.can, compile its contents with the argument lang set to "fr", and then execute the result.

The table returned by require("candran") gives you access to :

• candran.VERSION : Candran's version string.
• candran.syntax : table containing all the syntax additions of Candran.
• candran.preprocess(code[, args]) : return the Candran code code, preprocessed with args as argument table.
• candran.compile(code) : return the Candran code compiled to Lua.
• candran.make(code[, args]) : return the Candran code, preprocessed with args as argument table and compilled to Lua.

Compiling the library

The Candran library itself is written is Candran, so you have to compile it with an already compiled Candran library.

This command will use the precompilled version of this repository (build/candran.lua) to compile candran.can and write the result in candran.lua :

lua build/candran.lua candran.can > candran.lua

You can then run the tests on your build :

cd tests
lua test.lua ../candran.lua