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*View this file with results and syntax highlighting [here](https://mlochbaum.github.io/BQN/running.html).*
# How to run BQN
[CBQN](https://github.com/dzaima/CBQN) is the primary offline implementation. Scripts in this repository start with `#! /usr/bin/env bqn` in order to look up the user's `bqn` executable, which is expected to be CBQN.
Third-party packages to build some BQN implementations are available for both Nix and Arch Linux. For general use I recommend `cbqn` from nixpkgs (Nix) and `cbqn-git` from the AUR (Arch).
### Self-hosted BQN
See the subsections below for instructions on specific implementations.
This version of BQN is [implemented](implementation/README.md) mainly in BQN itself, but a host language supplies basic functionality and can also replace primitives for better performance. This also allows [embedding](doc/embed.md), where programs in the host language can include BQN code. It fully supports all syntax specified so far, and all primitives except a few cases of structural Under (`⌾`). System value support varies at it's implemented separately in each host.
Support in the following languages has been implemented:
- [C](https://github.com/dzaima/CBQN), targetting high performance. Usually fairly fast.
- Javascript, in this repository. Slow (compiles at ~5kB/s) but usable.
- BQN ([bqn.bqn](bqn.bqn)), for testing without a build step.
- [C++](https://github.com/ashermancinelli/cxbqn), planning to enable GPU use. Still slow; some cool features.
- [Erlang](https://github.com/cannadayr/ebqn), intended for embedding. Too slow to be practical; a [Rust version](https://github.com/cannadayr/ebqn-rs/) is in progress to fix this.
#### Javascript
The online REPL is [here](https://mlochbaum.github.io/BQN/try.html). The file [docs/bqn.js](docs/bqn.js) is zero-dependency Javascript, and can be loaded from HTML or Node.js. For command line use, call the Node.js script [bqn.js](bqn.js), passing a file and `•args`, or `-e` to execute all remaining arguments directly and print the results. [This notebook](https://observablehq.com/@lsh/bqn) shows how to run it in an Observable notebook.
#### CBQN
C sources are kept in the [CBQN](https://github.com/dzaima/CBQN) repository, but it also depends on bytecode from the BQN sources here. Running `make` gets a working copy right away with saved bytecode. Then to use the latest bytecode, call `$ ./BQN genRuntime …/BQN`, where `…/BQN` points to this repository, and run `make` again.
`genRuntime` can also be run with another BQN implementation (the Node.js one works but takes up to a minute), and plain `./genRuntime` uses your system's `bqn` executable. I symlink `…/CBQN/BQN` to `~/bin/bqn` so I can easily use CBQN for scripting.
CBQN uses the self-hosted runtime to achieve full primitive coverage, and implements specific primitives or parts of primitives natively to speed them up. This means primitives with native support—including everything used by the compiler—are fairly fast while others are much slower.
### dzaima/BQN
[dzaima/BQN](https://github.com/dzaima/BQN/) is an implementation in Java created by modifying the existing dzaima/APL, and should be easy to run on desktop Linux and Android. It was historically the main implementation, but is now updated only to stay up to date with language changes. It has almost complete syntax support but incomplete primitive support: major missing functionality is dyadic Depth (`⚇`), Windows (`↕`), and many cases of set functions (`⊐⊒∊⍷`, mostly with rank >1).
To get an executable that works like CBQN, make a script with the following contents. Scripts may use `#! /usr/bin/env dbqn` to run with dzaima/BQN specifically, but this is rare now (in this repository, only `test/dzaima` does it).
#! /bin/bash
java -jar /path/to/dzaima/BQN/BQN.jar "$@"
If compiled with Native Image, `nBQN` can be used directly instead.
### BQN2NGN
[BQN2NGN](https://github.com/mlochbaum/BQN2NGN) is a prototype implementation in Javascript build to experiment with the langauge, which is now abandoned.
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