News

Version 1.3.0 is available, with bugfixes.

About libfawk

Libfawk is a very small, reentrant, portable (pure C89) library that implements the fawk Virtual Machine (VM) for executing scritps. The implementation is very small (less than 1700 sloc) and as an option shipped as a single-file dependency-free .c source (with or without language compilers appended) that is very easy to integrate in any project. Libfawk is reentrant, which means multiple independent script contexts can exist and be used in parallel without having to use processes or threads. Libfawk has the following scripting langauge options available:

• Fawk is an AWK dialect that focuses on functions and is designed exclusively for embedded scripting.
• Fbas is a third-generation BASIC dialect that supports structured programming and is also designed for embedding.
• Fpas is a custom Pascal dialect covering the same feature set as fawk.

The compacted single-source version of each parser is less than 1000 sloc.

Small size allows users to learn each language in an hour using the tutorials: the multi-language fawk tutorial. The libfawk API is small and simple, which makes host application development easy.

Small size in numbers:

library version (#include from /usr/include, link)
component	edit lib size	raw lib size	remarks
VM	1750		data sheet , builtins, security
fawk	400	1600	data sheet , tutorial
fbas	600	1700	data sheet , tutorial
fpas	500	1600	data sheet , tutorial
single source, modular (#include vm then #include language(s))
component	sc size		source file
VM	1750		libfawk_sc_vm/libfawk_sc_vm.c
fawk	850		libfawk_sc_vm/libfawk_sc_fawk.c
fbas	950		libfawk_sc_vm/libfawk_sc_fpas.c
fpas	850		libfawk_sc_vm/libfawk_sc_fbas.c
single source, combined versions (#include only 1 file)
component	sc size		source file
VM+fawk	2500		libfawk_sc_fawk/libfawk_sc_fawk.c
VM+fbas	2600		libfawk_sc_fbas/libfawk_sc_fbas.c
VM+fpas	2500		libfawk_sc_fpas/libfawk_sc_fpas.c
VM+fawk+fbas+fpas	4100		libfawk_sc_all/libfawk_sc_all.c

Legend:

• sizes are in SLOC and represent maximum values, the actual code is usually a few dozen lines smaller
• edit lib size: source code size of the non-compacted library version (generated grammar .c/.h files are not included, the .y file is included)
• raw lib size: to-be-compiled source code size of the non-compacted library version (.y is not included but the generated grammar .c/.h files are included)
• sc size: "single source version", where source files are all merged into a large, compacted single C file that can be #included

Current state

First release, API is considered stable.

Focus

Libfawk tries to be small, portable and usable for developing bigger scripts within a host applications. It does not try to be:

• a complete awk/basic/anything implementation
• efficient in any way (regarding CPU or memory)
• a modern, fancy, OOP/functional language

For more info on why I wanted a new scripting language, please visit the FAQ.

Download and contact

Latest source from VCS: svn://repo.hu/libfawk/trunk

Release tarballs: release page

Author: Tibor 'Igor2' Palinkas

Contact (email and IRC): http://igor2.repo.hu/contact.html