This was originally created as a small side project to pass some time, and although it's grown past that by now, it's nowhere near perfect. If you find any bugs that look fixable, please tell me; the hardest part about solving problems is not how to fix the issue, but how to find it.

Syntax

Comments

Single-line comments are done with a pair of '#':

## some comment

Block comments are done like this:

[#
    some text
#]

Variable assignment:

$var_name = value;

All variables are stored with global visibility except function and type arguments, so be careful when choosing names.

Boolean Logic

$var1 == $var2
$var1 <= $var2
$var1 ~= $var2

All boolean operators are the same as those in Lua.

If/Select Statements

NOT IMPLEMENTED YET

Loops

For loops:

## Default-step for loop:
for ($varname = $start, $end) {
    print($varname);
    ## other stuff
};
## Set-step for loop:
## NOT IMPLEMENTED YET
## Dynamic-step for loop
## NOT IMPLEMENTED YET

While loops:

## NOT IMPLEMENTED

The loop will repeat until $some_conditions is false. The conditions are re-evaluated after each loop.

Function definition

function funcName($arg1, $arg2)
{
    ## do stuff
    return $arg1;
};

NOTE: RETURN STATEMENTS ARE NOT IMPLEMENTED YET

Types

NOT IMPLEMENTED YET

Arrays

NOT IMPLEMENTED YET

Output

To print things, you can use either this:

print("stuff");

or this:

print "stuff"; ## NOT IMPLEMENTED YET

Those methods are equivalent, although the second is more prone to bugs.

File I/O

NOT IMPLEMENTED YET

Frames

You can modify the behavior of the language itself with frames - Lua code that defines new operators and syntax defititions. To load a frame, use

loadframe "filename.fr"; ## NOT IMPLEMENTED YET

On load, the code inside filename.fr will be run as raw Lua code - this feature can technically be used to run code as well as create frames, and doing so is not discouraged.

Language Extensions

NOT IMPLEMENTED YET

Important Interpreter/Compiler Notes

Interpreter

• Although it functions exactly the same as executing pre-compiled program data, it is roughly 50% slower. Once debug capabilities are added, it will be possible to debug NGN code or AST maps, but not compiled program data.

Compiler

• Rule components enclosed in curly braces will be compiled rather than being kept as literal strings - keep this in mind when creating new rules.