am-lang-core

What is am-lang-core?

"AmLang" is a new programming language mainly targetted at niche platforms like AmigaOS (Also playing with MorphOS, Nintendo Wii Homebrew, Raspberry Pi Pico, Atari TOS). Read more about it below.

am-lang-core is the core library that one should use when programming AmLang. It has classes like Int, String, File, Stream, FileStream, HashMap, HashSet, List and so on.

Am Lang Features

AmLang is inspired by other programming languages like Kotlin, Java, C#, TypeScript, Swift etc.

• ARC (automatic reference counting)
• classes
• interfaces
• namespaces
• for-loops
• switch statements
• suspendable functions
• lambda expressions
• native c support
• exceptions (try,catch,throw)
• and a lot more.

Currently it compiles only on Mac/Linux/Windows (using Docker), but one of the ultimate goals is to re-write the compiler in its own language. The compiler doesn't generate any machine code on its own, it writes C-code and lets GCC make the machine code. Performance-wise it's not as efficient as C (obviously?), but one can easily let c/asm do the heavy lifting and use this for orchestration.

Requirements

• Java 11+
• Docker
• Windows, MacOS, Linux

Quick start (for AmigaOS3):

There is no "main" function in this library, but there are some examples in src/Am/Examples/Examples.aml - just rename for example main12() to main() and build.

build for AmigaOS (3.x):
java -jar amlc-1.jar . -acmd -bt amigaos_docker_unix-x64

add more runtime logging:
java -jar amlc-1.jar . -acmd -bt amigaos_docker_unix-x64 -rl

add more comments in the code:
java -jar amlc-1.jar . -acmd -bt amigaos_docker_unix-x64 -rdc

Binary will end up in builds/bin/amigaos/ as a file called "app". Copy the "app" file to an Amiga environment and execute it.

The option "-acmd" means that you allow the compiler to run commands from the package.yml file.

The option "-bt" specifies which build target (from package.yml) you want to use (which platform to build for and how to build)

Code example

The following code fills up a HashSet and times it.

namespace Am.Examples {    

    class CoreStartup {
        import Am.Lang
        import Am.Lang.Diagnostics
        import Am.IO
        import Am.IO.Networking
        import Am.Collections

        static fun main() {
            var set = new HashSet<Int>()
            var startDate = Date.now()
            var i = 1
            var max = 1000000
            ("Adding " + max.toString() + " key-value pairs to a HashSet on an emulated 020").println()
            while(i <= max) {                
                set.add(i)
                i++
            }

            var endDate = Date.now()

            ("Time: " + (endDate.getValue() - startDate.getValue()).toString() + "ms").println()

            var testVal = 4
            var iset = set as Set<Int>
            var hasValue = iset.has(testVal)

            if (hasValue) {
                "found".println()
            } else {
                "not found".println()
            }
        }
    }
}

Build System Notes

Testing

• All tests are compiled regardless of which you want to run - the build system compiles everything in the tests/ directory
• You cannot build or test a single .aml file - it's all or nothing
• The entire project (src/ and tests/) is compiled together as one unit
• Tests are built into builds/test-bin/linux-x64/test_app (or similar for other platforms)
• Use make test to run all tests
• Use make gdb-test for automatic crash analysis with GDB
• Use make gdb-test-interactive for manual debugging with GDB

Debugging

• The build system includes comprehensive GDB integration
• make gdb-test - Runs tests under GDB and automatically analyzes crashes
• make gdb-test-interactive - Drops into interactive GDB session for manual debugging
• make test-verbose - Runs tests with high logging output

Compiler Integration

• Tests use the same compiler as the main build
• The Java compiler (amlc-0.6.4.jar) translates AmLang to C code
• GCC then compiles the generated C code
• Native C implementations can override AmLang implementations if present
• Generated C code can be found in builds/ directory for inspection

Try AmLang for yourself

We've made a web-based playground (IDE) that you can try here: https://www.kelson.no/tools/amlangide