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<title>How to run BQN</title>
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<div class="nav"><a href="https://github.com/mlochbaum/BQN">BQN</a> / <a href="index.html">main</a></div>
<h1 id="how-to-run-bqn">How to run BQN</h1>
<p>There are currently two active BQN implementations: the self-hosted one in this repository, and the independent dzaima/BQN. Neither is entirely complete but they are quite capable for pure programming tasks (say, implementing a compiler). For scripting, only dzaima/BQN has the required I/O such as file functions. I tend to develop parts of applications in the online REPL and move to dzaima/BQN scripts in order to run them.</p>
<h3 id="bqn">BQN</h3>
<p>The online REPL is <a href="https://mlochbaum.github.io/BQN/try.html">here</a>. The file <a href="https://github.com/mlochbaum/BQN/blob/master/docs/bqn.js">docs/bqn.js</a> is zero-dependency Javascript, and can be loaded from HTML or Node.js. It can also be called directly from the command line (using Node); in this case each argument is evaluated as BQN code and the result is printed.</p>
<p>The version of BQN in this repository is implemented mainly in BQN itself—the compiler is entirely self-hosted, while the runtime is built from a small number of starting functions using preprocessed BQN. It completely supports the core language except for block headers and multiple body syntax, and a few cases of structural Under (<code><span class='Modifier2'>⌾</span></code>). The Javascript-based compiler is also slow, taking about 0.05 seconds plus 1 second per kilobyte of source (this is purely due to the slow runtime, as dzaima+reference achieves 1ms/kB with the same compiler once warmed up).</p>
<p>Because self-hosted BQN requires only a simple virtual machine to run, it is <a href="implementation/vm.html">fairly easy</a> to embed it in another programming language by implementing this virtual machine. The way data is represented is part of the VM implementation: it can use native arrays or a custom data structure, depending on what the language supports. An initial implementation will be very slow, but can be improved by replacing functions from the BQN-based runtime with native code. As the VM system can be hard to work with if you're not familiar with it, I advise you to contact me to discuss this option it you are interested.</p>
<h3 id="dzaimabqn">dzaima/BQN</h3>
<p><a href="https://github.com/dzaima/BQN/">dzaima/BQN</a> is an implementation in Java created by modifying the existing dzaima/APL. It should be easy to run on desktop Linux and Android. It is still in development and has almost complete syntax support but incomplete primitive support.</p>
<h3 id="dzaimareference-bqn">dzaima+reference BQN</h3>
<p>This repository contains a dzaima/BQN script <code><span class='Value'>dzref</span></code> that fills in the gaps in primitive support using BQN implementations of primitives that are not yet up to spec (<a href="https://github.com/mlochbaum/BQN/blob/master/spec/reference.bqn">reference implementations</a> of all primitives starting from a small set of pre-existing functions are part of BQN's specification).</p>
<p>You can run <code><span class='Value'>dzref</span></code> from ordinary dzaima/BQN using the <code><span class='Function'>•Import</span></code> command; see for example <a href="https://github.com/mlochbaum/BQN/blob/master/wcshim.bqn">wcshim.bqn</a>. For testing, it is run as a Unix script, in which case it depends on an executable <code><span class='Value'>dbqn</span></code> that runs dzaima/BQN on a file argument. I use the following script, using the path to a clone of dzaima/BQN for the jar file.</p>
<pre><span class='Comment'>#! /bin/bash
</span>
<span class='Value'>java</span> <span class='Function'>-</span><span class='Value'>jar</span> <span class='Function'>/</span><span class='Value'>path</span><span class='Function'>/</span><span class='Value'>to</span><span class='Function'>/</span><span class='Value'>dzaima</span><span class='Function'>/BQN/BQN.jar</span> <span class='Function'>-</span><span class='Value'>f</span> <span class='String'>"$@"</span>
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<p>The left argument for <code><span class='Function'>•Import</span></code> or the shell arguments can contain up to two arguments for the script. The first is a file to run, and the second is BQN code to be run after it.</p>
<h3 id="bqn2ngn">BQN2NGN</h3>
<p><a href="https://github.com/mlochbaum/BQN2NGN">BQN2NGN</a> is a prototype implementation in Javascript build to experiment with the langauge, which is now abandoned.</p>
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