BasicTest

This is a test module to demonstrate how a foreign programming language can be integrated into Raku. It is oriented primarily at developers of DSLs that can be usefully added to Raku's language braid, though nothing is stopping anyone from using it to integrate a general purpose language.

It will be continually updated over time to provide interested developers a sort of "best practices" guide. Code is commented heavily in some places to aid applicability to other projects.

Note that it requires RakuAST to be available: ensure your build of Rakudo is from the rakuast branch. At the present, make sure that you do not set RAKUDO_RAKUAST=1 in your ENV.

Current State

Currently, by mimicking this module, the following is possible:

• Creating a new declarator with special meta methods
  This may be useful for projects creating specialized container classes akin to Grammar
• Creating a new method declarator that uses a custom language
  In other words, between the braces, a totally different language
• Use multi methods for said declarator
• Creating a new declarator that installs a lexical symbol (e.g. a sub)

Limitations

At the present moment, note the following limitations

• Lexically-scoped methods aren't possible in the sublanguage yet
• Traits are not yet supported
• Signatures are done via custom processing, and not via Raku's built in token.
  This isn't necessarily a bad thing: you may want to do signatures to mirror your sublang in some way.

Some of these limitations may be easier to lift once RakuAST is more mature, others just require me to dedicate a bit more time to the module.

History

• v0.2 Initial sub support
  • Via basic declarator (instead of sub)
  • Currently multi not supported for basic subs
• v0.1.2 Multi support
  • Multi based on arity alone (it's basic, after all)
  • Improved code documentation
• v0.1.1 Signature support
  • Signatures now handle passed variables
• v0.1.0 Initial version
  • Basic method support
  • Basic declarator support

Copyright and license

© 2022 Matthew Stephen Stuckwisch. Licensed under the Artistic License 2.0.

Feel free to steal any and all techniques you find here, but please submit a PR if you are able to find an elegant way to work around any of the limitations, or if you are able to accomplish any feature implemented in a hacky manner through an official means.