Knot

Knot is a small stack-based language. Programs are parsed into instructions, executed by a VM, and printed from the final stack.

Run it with:

cargo run -- your_program.knot

Mental Model

Knot is built around a stack and a few value types:

• T and F for booleans.
• Numbers with automatic promotion across several numeric forms.
• Native functions stored in the global environment.
• Bodies, which are code values you can apply with ..
• Sequences, which collect values produced inside [...].
• Objects, which collect captured locals from {...}.

The VM looks up words in the current frame first, then in globals. If a word is not found, it resolves to ().

Values

Empty

() is the empty value. It is also the fallback when the stack underflows or a lookup fails.

Booleans

Booleans are T and F.

Only T is treated as true by conditional apply. Everything else counts as false.

T (1 2 +.) ? ; 3
F (1 2 +.) ? ; ()

Numbers

The numeric tower currently supports:

• Nat: unsigned natural numbers, like 0, 1, 2.
• Int: signed integers, like -1.
• Rat: rationals, written as a/b.
• Real: floating point numbers, like 3.14.
• Complex: complex numbers, written as re i im, like 1.5i2.1.

Numbers promote automatically when you mix them. In practice, arithmetic tries to keep the most precise form that makes sense.

Examples:

0
-1
1/3
3.1416
1.5i2.1

Functions and Bodies

• Func is a native Rust function.
• Body is Knot code stored as a value.

Bodies are created by parentheses and are applied with ..

(2 *) . ; multiplies the top value by 2

Sequences

Square brackets create a sequence frame. When the frame ends, every value produced inside it is packed into a Seq.

[ 1 2 +. ]

Objects

Curly braces create an object frame. Captures inside the frame become fields in the resulting object.

{ 1 @a 2 @b }

Syntax

Knot is whitespace-driven. Most things are words, and words become values or builtins when the VM runs.

Literals

• T, F
• numbers: 0, -1, 1/3, 3.1416, 1.5i2.1
• parentheses: ( ... ) for a body
• brackets: [ ... ] for a sequence
• braces: { ... } for an object

Application

. applies the value on the stack.

1 2 +.

This pushes 1, pushes 2, pushes the + function, then applies it.

Conditional Application

? conditionally applies the top callable value.

The stack order is:

condition callable ?

If the condition is T, the callable runs. If the condition is F, both values are discarded.

T (1 2 +.) ?
F (1 2 +.) ?

Captures

@name captures the top stack value into the current local scope.

@(a b c) captures multiple values in order from bottom to top. That means the bottommost captured value goes into a, then b, then c.

1 2 3 @(a b c)

This gives a=1, b=2, c=3.

Captures are local to the current frame.

Builtins

The current builtins are:

• + addition
• - subtraction
• * multiplication
• / division
• % remainder
• ^ power
• neg unary negation
• not boolean or bitwise not
• & bitwise and
• | bitwise or
• << left shift
• >> right shift

They are applied like any other callable value:

1 2 +.
10 neg.
5 1 <<.

Evaluation Model

The VM runs one instruction at a time. Frames are used for bodies, sequences, and objects.

• Body frames behave like callable code blocks.
• Seq frames collect the values produced inside the brackets.
• Obj frames collect locals into a map.

When a body frame exits, its top value becomes the new top value in the previous frame. That is how a body returns a result to its caller.

Example

This program adds 1 and 2, then applies a body that multiplies by 2:

1 2 +. (2 *.) .

And this swaps the top two values from 1 2 to 2 1:

1 2 (@(a b) b a) .

Current Notes

The language is still small and evolving. Some ideas from IDEA.md are not implemented yet, especially sets and the extra comparison/logical operators mentioned there.

The README here describes the current code in this repository, not the full design sketch.