Orb is a general-purpose programming language. It is procedural, statically typed, and compiled, with scope-based resource management. A major feature are its powerful meta-programming capabilities - you can use identifiers, types, and even Orb code itself as first-class values at compile-time.

It offers a powerful macro system - procedures that return Orb code to be compiled. This allows you to parameterize and reuse similar bits of code, making your codebase more concise and easily readable.

This project is a hobby effort and not mature enough for anything beyond writing toy programs.

To learn more about the language, please read the Orb documentation.

Visit the quick examples sections of the Orb documentation to see what Orb code looks like.

import "base.orb";
import "std/io.orb";

mac reduce (coll::preprocess start::preprocess oper) {
    sym (acc (genId)) (iter (genId));

    ret \(block ,(typeOf start) {
        sym (,acc ,start);
        range ,iter ,(lenOf coll) {
            = ,acc (,oper ,acc ([] ,coll ,iter));
        };
        pass ,acc;
    });
};

mac reduce (coll::preprocess oper) {
    ret \(reduce ,coll 0 ,oper);
};

fnc main () () {
    std.println (reduce (arr i32 10 20 30) +);

    std.println (reduce (arr i32 1 2 3 4) 1 *);
};

libs/ contains source files for standard use in Orb projects. Reading these will give you more ideas on what is possible with Orb.

Additionally, you may also browse .orb files in tests/positive/. These are the test files for the project. They may not be the best examples of a good code style, however.

The following are required:

• CMake version 3.4.3 or greater
• LLVM version 12
• Clang version 12
• Python 3 (for testing, optional)

From the top directory of the project, execute the following:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
make install

(The last command may require root privileges.)

Optionally, you can also run the tests with:

cd tests
python3 run_tests.py orbc

If the compiler was successfully installed, you can call it with orbc. It will print a help text on the correct usage of the program.