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27 lines
1.8 KiB
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27 lines
1.8 KiB
Markdown
# Alee Forth
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**Still very much in development! Not suitable for real applications yet.**
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Alee is a portable and concise Forth implementation in modern C++. Its primary aims are for reduced program size and execution efficiency. Portability includes bare-metal platforms, with intentions to support microcontrollers with kilobytes of memory.
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## Cross-platform compatibility
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Alee relies on the C++17 standard. Alee *does not* rely on operating-system-specific functions, making portability easy. See the `msp430` target for an example of a port.
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System-specific functionality such as text output is contained to a `sys` word. This word calls a user-supplied `user_sys` C++ function that should implement the necessary (or any additional) system-specific functionality.
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# Forth compatibility
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A base dictionary is being built by working through the "core" and "core extension" [glossaries](https://forth-standard.org/standard/core). These glossaries are listed in `compat.txt`, with "yes" indicating that the word is implemented either in `core.fth` or within Alee itself. `core.fth` may be compiled into a binary for loading on targets without filesystems.
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Alee Forth aims for compliance with common Forth standards like Forth 2012 and ANS Forth. Compliance is tested using a [Forth 2012 test suite](https://github.com/gerryjackson/forth2012-test-suite). Supported test files are in the `test` directory, with non-passing or unimplemented tests commented out.
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## Building
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Alee requires `make` and a C++17-compatible compiler.
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To compile, simply run the `make` command. This will produce a library, `libalee.a`, as well as a REPL binary named `alee`.
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A `small` target exists that optimizes the build for size.
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A `fast` target exists that optimizes for maximum performance on the host (not target) system.
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