pacciani/README.md

Monicelli

Monicelli is an esoterical programming language based on the so-called "supercazzole" from the movie Amici Miei, a masterpiece of the Italian comedy.

There is no way to translate a "supercazzola" to English, so if you don't speak Italian, I'm afraid you won't understand. I'm really sorry for you :)

Compilation

You will need bison version >= 3.0, flex >= 2.5 and any C++11 compiler. A makefile is provided and will compile the mcc executable. Compiling the executable is a matter of:

make

A patch is provided for compatibility with Bison 2.5. If you can't really upgrade to Bison 3.0, and I strongly recommend that, you can always compile with:

make bison2

However, note that this is not supported and might be removed in a future release.

There are some other targets, which are of interest only for developers.

Usage

mcc is a source to source compiler, which reads Monicelli and outputs a subset of C++. For those of you who want to get to the code ASAP, the examples/ folder contains a set of programs covering most of the features of the language.

A good wat to learn on the field is comparing the resulting C++ with the input. Well, mostly with the beautified version of the input, *.beauty.mc.

The compiler reads from standard input and print result to standard output.

$ ./mcc < examples/primes.mc > primes.cpp
$ c++ primes.cpp -o primes
$ ./primes

Language overview

The original specification can be found in Specification.txt, which unfortunately is not complete. This project is an ongoing effort to implement it, which means filling gaps and ambiguities. This file only documents usable features of the language.

Statements have no terminator, i.e. no semicolon ; or the like. A single statement can be split across multiple lines and multiple statements can be grouped on the same line. However, keywords consisting of multiple space-separed words cannot be split on multiple lines.

A comma might be inserted after each statement, if it fits the sentence ;)

Main

The entry point of the program (the "main") is identified by the phrase:

Lei ha clacsonato

which marks the beginning of the supercazzola (i.e. of the program).

A value can be returned by using the the following statement:

vaffanzum <expression>!

optionally, no value might be returned with:

vaffanzum!

Expressions

The usual operators are given, but spelled as words to best fit in sentences. They are directly mapped on usual operators as follows:

Form	Maps to
più	+
meno	-
per	*
diviso	/
maggiore di	>
minore di	<
maggiore uguale a/di	>=
minore uguale a/di	<=

So 2 più 4 means 2 + 4.

###Binary shift

Binary shift operators have a slighly different syntax:

<what> con scappellamento a <direction> per <bits>

which is equivalent to what >> bits or what << bits, depending on the direction, which is specified as follows:

Phrase	Direction
destra	right
sinistra	left

as you might have noticed, those are simply the translation in Italian of "left" and "right". For instance:

antani con scappellamento a sinistra per 2

maps to antani << 2.

It goes without saying, other expression can be used instead of numbers. Also, the usual precedence rules apply.

Braces are not implemented.

Variables

A variable name can contain numbers, upper and lower case character and must not start with a number (the usual rules, that's it).

A variable might be prefixed with an article to fit a sentence. The compiler does not check concordance with the following name, but accepts any article of the Italian language: il, lo, la, i, gli, le, un, una dei, delle, l', un'. For instance, cappello and il cappello refer to the same variable.

Consequently, the articles above cannot be used as variable names.

###Assignment

A value can be assigned to a variable with the following statement:

<varname> come fosse <expression>

the alternate spelling come se fosse can be used as well.

###Declaration

Variables can be declared in any scope. There are 5 variable types, which are directly mapped on C++/C99 types as follows:

Type name	Mapped C type
Necchi	int
Mascetti	char
Perozzi	float
Melandri	bool
Sassaroli	double

A variable is declared with the following statement:

voglio <varname>, <type>

an initialization value can be provided:

voglio <varname>, <type> come se fosse <expression>

for instance:

voglio antani, Necchi come se fosse 4

declares a variables called antani of type Necchi (int) and initializes it to 4.

Input/Output

Variables and expressions can be printed with the statement:

<expression> a posterdati

Conversely, a variable might be read from input using:

mi porga <varname>

Loop

There is only one loop construct, equivalent to a C do {} while();, which is defined as follows:

stuzzica
    <statements>
e brematura anche, se <condition>

For example:

voglio antani, Necchi come se fosse 10
stuzzica:
    antani come fosse antani meno 1
e brematura anche, se antani maggiore di 0

maps to:

int antani = 10;
do {
    antani = antani - 1;
} while (antani > 0);

brematura might be replaced by its alternate form prematura

Branch

The branch construct encompasses both the features of an if and a switch. The best way to explain it is by comparing its various forms to the corresponding C translation.

This is the general form:

che cos'è <variable>?
    <condition>:
        <statements>
    o magari <condition>:
        <statements>
    o tarapia tapioco:
        <statement>
e velocità di esecuzione

where <condition> might be either a value or a semi-expression, that is an operator followed by any expression. For instance:

che cos'è il genio?
    intuizione:
        genio come se fosse genio meno 1
    intuizione diviso 2:
        genio come se fosse genio più 1
    maggiore di mobiletto per due:
        genio come se fosse genio per 2
    o tarapia tapioco:
        genio come se fosse 2
e velocità di esecuzione

maps to:

if (genio == intuizione) { 
    genio = genio - 1;
} else if (genio == (intuizione / 2)) {
    genio = genio + 1;
} else if (genio > (mobiletto * 2)) {
    genio = genio * 2;
} else {
    genio = 2;
}

The statement can emulate an if () {} else {}:

che cos'è il genio?
    maggiore di mobiletto:
        genio come se fosse 2
    o tarapia tapioco:
        genio come se fosse 0
e velocità di esecuzione

Placing multiple o <condition>: block is similar to a chain of else if in C.

The o tarapia tapioco block can be omitted:

che cos'è il genio?
    maggiore di mobiletto:
        genio come se fosse 2
e velocità di esecuzione

Finally, here is the equivalent of a switch () {}:

che cos'è il genio?
    1:
        genio come se fosse 2
    o 2:
        genio come se fosse 7
    o tarapia tapioco:
        genio come se fosse 9
e velocità di esecuzione

where the o tarapia tapioco part is like the default block.

Functions

Coming in a few releases....

We can already parse and emit them, although there are some ambiguities yet to be solved in the specification.

Exceptions

The program might be aborted immediately with the statement:

avvertite don ulrico

there are no arguments.

Assertions

An assertion block will evaluate its expression and trigger an error message if it is found to be 0 (logical false). An assertion is stated as:

ho visto <expression>!

Comments

Any character after bituma is ignored until a line break is encountered. For instance:

antani come se fossee 4 bituma lorem ipsum

Comments are useful to fill the "supercazzola" and make it more readable, since any word (including reserved words) can be inserted into it.

###Meta comments

In addition to line comments, there are meta comments. A meta comment starts with an hash sign # and continues until a line break is encountered, as an ordinary comment.

They have a different graphical symbol, which can be immediately spotted inside a long "supercazzola". Also, ordinary comments can and should be used in an improper way to fill the sentence, meta comments provide a mechanism for distiguishing "real" comments.

In addition to that, meta comments are printed to stderr during compilation.