PiLisp—An interpreted Lisp inspired by Clojure.

Runs on all supported Dart targets.

Alpha. Much works, much may change.

This is the pilisp package on pub.dev.

Features

This package implements the core PiLisp language that works across Dart VM, native compilation, Flutter, and web targets.

The core language supports:

  • Clojure syntax
  • Immutable data structures
  • Macros
  • Lexical closures
  • Functions for many Dart Core classes and methods
  • A growing subset of Clojure's functions/macros

By design and due to differences between the Java and Dart virtual machines, there are many areas where PiLisp differs from Clojure. See Comparison of PiLisp & Clojure for more information.

Usage

  • Download a release for standalone CLI usage.
  • dart pub add pilisp to add as a library to your Dart project.

For CLI use, download the latest release for your platform and run the pl executable.

$ pl
pl>

Run the help command for all options:

$ pl help
Run a PiLisp REPL, or try the subcommands for more options.

Usage: pl <command> [arguments]

Global options:
-h, --help    Print this usage information.

Available commands:
  eval   Evaluate PiLisp code passed as arguments.
  load   Load PiLisp code saved in files.
  repl   Start a PiLisp REPL.

Run "pl help <command>" for more information about a command.

For use in your Dart programs, PiLisp.loadString will read and evaluate program source:

PiLisp.loadString('(+ 1 2 3 4)');

Additional information

The name "PiLisp" was originally a shortened form of "Piped Lisp," because a first prototype of this language was developed while building a REPL for the Shortcut project management SaaS product that included a rudimentary Lisp whose defining feature was use of the pipe character | as an equivalent of Clojure's thread-first macro ->.

Build

  1. Clone this repository
  2. Run dart pub get
  3. Run ./script/compile

Acknowledgements

Initial implementation of the reader was based on ClojureDart's reader.cljd licensed under the Eclipse Public License (EPL-1.0).

A rewrite of the reader was adapted from dlox's scanner.dart licensed under the MIT License.

Much of PiLisp's implementation (both Dart and PiLisp code) was copied and adapted directly from the Java and Clojure source code in the Clojure project licensed under the Eclipse Public License (EPL-1.0).

License

Copyright © Daniel Gregoire 2022–2023

Eclipse Public License - v 2.0

THE ACCOMPANYING PROGRAM IS PROVIDED UNDER THE TERMS OF THIS ECLIPSE
PUBLIC LICENSE ("AGREEMENT"). ANY USE, REPRODUCTION OR DISTRIBUTION
OF THE PROGRAM CONSTITUTES RECIPIENT'S ACCEPTANCE OF THIS AGREEMENT.

Libraries

builder
This library is not intended to be imported by typical end-users unless you are creating a custom compilation pipeline. See documentation for details, and build.yaml for how these builders are configured by default.
pilisp
The PiLisp Language