Clox

A C implementation of the Lox programming language, as described in the book Crafting Interpreters by Robert Nystrom.

Prerequisites

To build and run this project, you will need:

• A C compiler (e.g., gcc or clang)
• CMake (version 3.10 or higher)
• make (or another build system supported by CMake)

Building the Project

Follow these steps to build the project from the command line:

1. Create a build directory:

   mkdir build
   cd build

2. Generate the build files with CMake:

   cmake ..

3. Compile the project:

   make

After a successful build, the Clox executable will be located in the build directory.

Usage

You can run Clox in two modes: REPL (interactive) or by executing a script file.

REPL Mode

To start the interactive REPL, run the executable without any arguments:

./Clox

Type Lox code and press Enter to execute it. Press Ctrl+D (or Ctrl+C) to exit.

Running a Script

To execute a Lox script file, provide the path to the file as an argument:

./Clox path/to/script.lox

Running Tests

The project includes several test files in the tests/ directory organized by feature (e.g., classes, functions). Many tests include a script file and a corresponding .expected file containing the expected output.

To run a test and manually verify its output:

./Clox tests/classes/classInheritanceTest

Compare the printed output with the content of tests/classes/classInheritanceTest.expected.

Alternatively, use ctest from the build directory to run the basic tests configured in CMake:

ctest

Project Structure

• src/: Contains the C source and header files for the interpreter.
• tests/: Contains test scripts and expected output files.
• CMakeLists.txt: Configuration for the CMake build system.