Citrine (programming language): Difference between revisions

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Latest revision as of 04:29, 23 February 2024

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| designer = Gabor de Mooij, Aavesh Jilani

| developer = Gabor de Mooij, Aavesh Jilani

| latest release version = 0.9.26

| latest release date = {{Start date and age|20202024|df=y1|5}}

| typing = [[dynamic typing|dynamic]]

| implementations = C

| influenced by = [[Smalltalk]], [[Self (programming language)|Self]]

| influenced =

| operating system = [[Cross-platform|Cross-platform (multi-platform)]]

| license = [[BSD licenses|BSD]]

| website = {{URL|citrine-lang.org}}

| file ext = .ctr

}}

'''Citrine''' is a general-purpose [[programming language]] for [[Cross-platform|Cross-platform (multi-platform)]]various operating systems]]. It focuses on readability and maintainability. Readability is achieved by syntactic and conceptual minimalism. The language is heavily inspired by [[Smalltalk]] and [[Self (programming language)|Self]] but has some very distinctive features. Like Smalltalk, Citrine treats everything as an object and focuses on sending messages to these objects. However, unlike Smalltalk, Citrine lacks the concept of a class. In this regard, Citrine is more like Self and [[JavaScript]] because it uses [[Prototype-based programming|prototypes]]. The combination of Smalltalk -like messages and prototypes is what makes Citrine unique.

AsSince of theversion 0.7 version, Citrine has focused on supportingusing nativeforms humanbased on various natural languages instead of just English, toimproving helpusability peoplefor reduceusers theof numberother oflanguages, bugsthereby becausereducing ofprogramming confusioneffort and misunderstandingincidence dueof to language barriersbugs. As such, Citrine 0.7 and higherlater featureinclude a translatorfeature to translatetransform code between humannatural languages.

==Syntax==

Citrine has a very limited syntax and it's very closely related to Smalltalk. Everything in Citrine is an ''object'',. thereThere are 5 literals:

* {{code|Nil}}

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* <code>{ ...params.. ...block of code... }</code>

The code block literal uses a ''pipe'' symbol ⟨|⟩ to separate the parameters from the logic '|',; if there are no

parameters, the backslash should be used instead of '\'.

Citrine only supports full-line comments, commentswhich start with a '⟨#'⟩.

A Citrine program is basically a sequence of messages sent to objects. For instance, to determine whether 5 is an even number, the message 'even?' is sent to the number 5.

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</syntaxhighlight>

This is called a ''unary'' message, because it takes no arguments. A ''binary'' message is always a single UTF-8 character; this differs from Smalltalk, where there is a fixed set of binary messages. Here is an example:

<syntaxhighlight lang="smalltalk">

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</syntaxhighlight>

Here a binary message '+' is sent to number 6, with the argument of thisthe binary message isbeing '7',. thisThis will resultresults in athe new number object '13'. Assigning the outcome of this operation to a variable uses the assignment operator: :=.

<syntaxhighlight lang="smalltalk">

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</syntaxhighlight>

Also note thatAdditionally, each line in a Citrine program ends with a dot, just likeas in Smalltalk. BesidesAlong with unary and binary messages, Citrine offers ''keyword messages'', which take arguments interspersed with the message itself just like Smalltalk and [[Objective-C]].

<syntaxhighlight lang="smalltalk">

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</syntaxhighlight>

To break out of a loop in Citrine, one has tomust send the message 'break' to a boolean,. thisThis allows a conditional break from a loop without having to factor out the break conditions:

<syntaxhighlight lang="smalltalk">

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==Pipelines==

Unlike Smalltalk, Citrine has no semi-colon to send a message to the original receiver. Instead, Citrine has a comma token ',' used to chain keyword messages, thiswhich allows writing Unix-like ''[[Pipeline (Unix)|pipelines]]''. The following code uses a pipeline-like syntax to replace all the 'o' characters with zeroes, the resulting string would be something like: '1010101...'.

<syntaxhighlight lang="smalltalk">

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==Prototypes==

The biggest difference from Smalltalk is the use of prototypes. Citrine does not have a concept of a class, itbut only knows about objects. An object is created using the new message:

<syntaxhighlight lang="smalltalk">

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</syntaxhighlight>

This object can be made to respond to messages by ordering the object to listen to events., Thissimilar isto kindadding ofmethods similarin tolanguages like [[Java (programming language)|Java]]:

adding methods in languages like [[Java (programming language)|Java]]:

<syntaxhighlight lang="smalltalk">