Backstack Programming Language

Backstack is a stack-based programming language with a simple, readable syntax inspired by Forth. It offers:

• Stack-Based Execution: Operations manipulate values on a stack
• String Manipulation: Robust string operations including concatenation, slicing, and splitting
• Variable Support: Easy-to-use variable definition and access
• Control Flow: Conditionals (if/else) and loops (while/for)
• Functions: Define and call functions with support for recursion
• Array Operations: Create and manipulate array data structures
• File I/O: Read from and write to files
• Bitwise Operations: Support for bitwise AND, OR, XOR, NOT, and shifts

Backstack programs can be both interpreted (via the sim command) or compiled to assembly. The language is designed to be simple to learn yet powerful enough for diverse programming tasks.

Documentation

For comprehensive documentation on how to program in Backstack, please see DOCS.md.

Examples

# Hello World
"Hello, World!"
dump

# Simple calculation
5 3 + dump  # Outputs: 8

# Using variables
10 set:x
20 set:y
get:x get:y + dump  # Outputs: 30

# Defining a function
fun:factorial
  dup 1 <= 
  if 
    drop 1 return
  else
    dup 1 - call:factorial * return
  endif
fun_end

5 call:factorial dump  # Outputs: 120