Coda

A scripting language for music synthesis. Work in progress!

Building

With Rust installed, git clone this repository; then cargo r to build and run the REPL.

Language documentation

Using the REPL

Use (load "module_path") to load a file; use (quit) to terminate the REPL.

Primitive types

There are several primitive types:

Type	Description	Examples
Number	a 32-bit floating point number	10.4
Boolean	a boolean value	TRUE, FALSE
Symbol	an identifier for a variable or function	add, find_least_element
String	a string of characters	"hello world"
List	a list of objects	(1 2 3), ("hello" 17.8 FALSE)

Functions

Everything that isn't a primitive value is a function. Functions are defined with the following syntax:

(def <function_name> (<arg_1> <arg_2> <...>) <eval_expression>)

and are called with the following syntax:

(<function_name> <arg_1> <arg_2> <...>)

For example, a function that computes (a * b) + (a / b) would be defined as follows:

(def add_product_and_quotient (a b)
    (+ (* a b) (/ a b)))

Functions with no arguments are effectively just variables, and the argument list can be omitted entirely in their definition:

(def three (+ 1 2))

The following functions are built into the language:

Function	Description	Examples
+	Adds all arguments	(+ 1 2 3 4) evaluates to 10
-	Subtracts all other arguments from the first argument	(- 1 2 3 4) evaluates to -8
*	Multiplies all arguments	(* 1 2 3 4) evaluates to 24
/	Divides the first argument by all other arguments	(/ 144 6 3) evaluates to 8
sin	Computes the sine of the given radian value	(sin 3) evaluates to 0.14112
cos	Computes the cosine of the given radian value	(cos 3) evaluates to -0.9899925
sin	Computes the tangent of the given radian value	(tan 3) evaluates to -0.14254655
equals	Checks if two values are equal	(equals 3 2) evaluates to FALSE
if	If the first argument is TRUE, evaluates to the second argument; otherwise, evaluates to the third argument	(if (equals 3 (+ 1 2)) "equal!" "not equal!") evaluates to "equal!"
def	As described above