SIPL

The Software Inc. Programming Language consists of a lexer, parser and interpreter written specifically for scripting in Software Inc.

Performance considerations

SIPL is an interpreted language and relies heavily on the .NET reflection library to interact with C# types, which makes it somewhat slow. Since scripts aren’t executed very often, it won’t be much of a problem, just keep the complexity of your scripts in mind.

Syntax

SIPL was written to resemble C# as much as possible, while still remaining a simple scripting language, so the simplest way to explain the syntax is how it varies from C#:

• You cannot define namespaces, classes or functions
• Number operations in SIPL convert all numbers to doubles behind the scenes
• You can use the var keyword to declare temporary variables, but you cannot specify their type
• You cannot use bitwise operations. The ^ symbol raises a number to a power or evaluates xor on booleans
• You cannot increment or use operations together with assignment, i.e. += or ++. You must write i = i + 1
• SIPL does not support the new keyword, but you can create arrays by writing ~[1, 2, 3] or call a constructor by just using the type name, e.g. Color(1,0,0)
• For loops are not supported, however you can write foreach (element in list)
• Enums should not be qualified when assigning, comparing or in function parameters, e.g. you should write Female instead of Human.Gender.Female.
• Comparisons can be chained, e.g. if (10 < x < 20)
• Single quotation marks (') do nothing
• Multiline comments are not supported

Example

var words = ~["hello", " ", "world"]; //Create an array
if (5 < 10 < 20) //Always true
	{
	var result = "";
	foreach (word in words)
		{
		result = result + word; //Concatenate the strings from the array
		}
	Debug(result); //Log the result
	}
else
	{
	Debug("Something went wrong");
	}

Built-in functions

Math functions

• Abs(x) – Returns the absolute value of x
• Pow(x, y) – Raises x to the power of y
• Sqrt(x) – Returns the square root of x
• Log(x) – Returns the natural logarithm of x
• Log10(x) – Returns the base 10 logarithm of x
• Round(x) – Rounds x to the nearest integer
• Ceil(x) – Rounds x up to the nearest integer
• Floor(x) – Rounds x down to the nearest integer
• Min(x, y) – Returns the smallest number between x and y
• Max(x, y) – Returns the largest number between x and y
• Sign(x) – Returns -1, 0, 1 based on the sign of x
• Sin(x) – Returns the sine of x
• Cos(x) – Returns the cosine of x
• Lerp(a, b, t) – Interpolates between a and b using t
• Clamp(x, a, b) – Clamps x between a and b
• Clamp01(x) – Clamps x between 0 and 1

Enumerable functions

These functions can be used on any C# enumerable, e.g. arrays, lists, dictionaries, sets, etc. You simply use the function on the enumerable, and pass an anonymous function as a parameter, using x to refer to the elements of the enumerable, e.g.

employees.Where(x.Salary > 1000).OrderBy(x.Age).Select(x.Name) //Will return the names of all employees that make more than $1000 ordered by their age.

They work exactly like LINQ extension methods, basically.

• Any(func) – Returns whether any elements satisfy func(x)
• All(func) – Returns whether all elements satisfy func(x)
• None(func) - Returns whether no elements satisfy func(x)
• ForEach(func) – Runs func(x) on all elements
• Select(func) – Runs func(x) on all elements and returns the result
• SelectMany(func) – Assuming input is an enumerable of enumerables, runs func(x) on elements in each sub enumerable and returns it as a flat enumerable
• Count(func) – Returns how many elements satisfy func(x)
• Where(func) – Returns elements that satisfy func(x)
• First() - Returns the first element of the enumerable or null
• Last() - Returns the last element of the enumerable or null
• FindFirst(func) – Returns the first element that satisfies func(x)
• OrderBy(func) – Returns elements sorted by func(x) in ascending order
• OrderByDescending(func) – Pretty obvious
• Distinct() – Returns only unique elements in the enumerable
• Sum(func) – Returns the sum of running func(x) on all elements
• Average(func) – Returns the sum of running func(x) on all elements divided by the amount of elements
• Min(func) – Returns the smallest number resulting from running func(x) on all elements, returns 0 on empty input
• Max(func) – Returns the largest number resulting from running func(x) on all elements, returns 0 on empty input
• Size() – Returns how many elements there are in the enumerable
• GetRandomElement() – Returns a random element from the enumerable

Other functions

• String(x) – Converts x to a string, using C# .ToString()
• FormatString(x, y) – Converts x to a string with a format string y using C# .Tostring(format)
• Debug(x) – Writes x to the log using Unity’s log system
• Random() – Returns a random decimal number between 0 and 1
• RandomRange(x, y) – Returns a random decimal number between x and y
• RandomInteger(x, y) – Returns a random integer between x and y(exclusive)