Quickstart

SIMAS Quickstart

Welcome to the SIMAS programming language! SIMAS stands for Simple Assembly, a programming language with a syntax inspired heavily by Assembly.
SIMAS code, in files ending in .simas, compiles to .csa bytecode, which stands for Compiled Simple Assembly, which is then execued by the SIMAS runtime environment.
There are 3 basic types in SIMAS: bool, num and str
Each line of SIMAS starts with an instruction, followed by zero or more operands. Instructions and types are case-insensitive, and everything else are case-sensitive
To get started, download the latest release from the release page, or git clone it locally and build it. It is recommended that you add both the executable simasc(compiler) and simas(runtime environment) to your PATH.

Tip

If you're using Visual Studio Code(VS Code), you can install the SIMAS Language Support Extension for syntax highlighting and code completion

1.Hello World!

run simas init myProject in your command line, and you should see a project called myProject initialized, with some default this SIMAS code generated:

PRINTC Hello World!;

Note

It is case-insensitive for instructions(like printc) and data types. But for everything else, capitalization matters. By convention, it is good practice to all-caps your instructions and data types.

Alternatively, you can just create a file with the contents above.
To run it, enter the following in your command line:

simasc Main.simas

This should compile your .simas file into a .csa file. If you created your own file instead of using simas init, just replace Main.simas with whatever your filename is.
Now, to execute the bytecode, type in the following:

simas Main.csa

Again replace Main.csa with the name of your generated .csa file. It should print Hello, World!.
Use the same process to execute any SIMAS programs in the future.
Congrats! You just wrote your first SIMAS program!

2. Basic Operations

Let's explore some basic operations in SIMAS.

Variables and Assignment:

• Declaring a Variable: In SIMAS, you don't explicitly declare variable types. You can simply assign a value to a variable, and its type will be inferred.

• Example:

set num myNumber 10; 

This line declares a variable named myNumber and assigns the integer value 10 to it.

Arithmetic Operations:

• SIMAS supports basic arithmetic operations:

  • add: Adds two numbers.
  • sub: Subtracts two numbers.
  • mul: Multiplies two numbers.
  • div: Divides two numbers.

• Example:

set num result 3;
add num result 5;
print result; 

This code will:

1. Calculate 5 + 3 and store the result (8) in the result variable.
2. Print the value of result to the console.

Caution

Please put one space and one space only between operands and instructions, as well as between operands themselves. If more than one space is entered, unexpected behavior might occur

3. Print statements

There are a few different types of print statements in SIMAS

1. print This prints a variable. Example:

set str myName Aarik;
print myName;

2. println This prints a new line. Example:

println;

3. printc This prints a constant. Example:

printc Hello!;
printc 10;
printc false;

4. prints This prints a space. Example:

prints;

4. Comments

Comments are ignored by the SIMAS runtime. They are designed for humans to read code easier. On SIMAS, comments are single-lined and starts with @ and ends with ;

@ This is a comment;

5. Please

If you want to be polite to SIMAS, you can optionally add the keyword PLEASE(case-insensitive) in front of any instruction.

please printc Hello;

Does the exact same thing as

printc Hello;

Important

please doesn't do anything, but it does make you a more polite programmer. It is very important to be polite to everyone.

6. Where do we go from here?

This Quickstart is just the tip of the massive SIMAS iceberg. If you want to learn more, you can:

1. read the README.md
2. contribute by open an issue or a pull request
3. explore the rest of the wiki

Lastly, if you enjoyed SIMAS, please consider starring this repo. Thanks!