The Idle Scripting Language
NEWS: Idle 0.6b released!
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For the console-based version of the Idle interpreter (idle.exe, see also the tools page) this new beta is a minor upgrade, incorporating some small changes and a few new functions -- but for GUI aficionados it's a big step: this latest beta release finally integrates a module for creating simple GUIs and dialog boxes into the Idle runtime library and comes with a fully GUI-enabled interpreter (idlew.exe). The gui module supports most of the dialog box interface elements available in modern Windows systems (buttons, checkboxes, edit controls, list and combo boxes, treeviews, richedit fields, ...)
If no grave bugs rear their ugly heads in the next couple of months, the next release might indeed be the official 1.0 version of Idle!
Please see the list of changes for a short description of what changed between versions.
So what is Idle, then?
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Idle is a simple but powerful scripting language, in basically the same vein as the venerable Perl or Python languages. It is, however, an altogether more lightweight application. At the core of Idle sits a tweaked and enhanced version of Lua. Idle inherits from Lua its elegant and powerful language definition as well as a highly-optimised interpreter kernel (an extremely fast compiler is included as well). Idle, like Lua, is readily extended with additional functions and libraries (which can be written either in C/C++ or in Idle itself).
This small language kernel is complemented by an extensive collection of runtime libraries, almost all of which are squeezed into a single DLL (with a size of around 230 KB) plus a few supporting Idle modules.
Depending on your requirements the most basic Idle setup consists of just three or four files:
- idle.exe: this is the Idle interpreter for console-mode (command-line-based) scripts. It reads and executes both .idle script source code files and .idol compiled byte code chunks (.idol is short for IDle Object Library). This version of the interpreter interacts with the user mainly via the console (although idle.exe can create GUIs and dialogboxes if required).
- idlew.exe: this is the Idle interpreter for GUI scripts. It also reads and executes .idle scripts and .idol chunks. This version of the interpreter interacts with the user mainly via GUIs and dialogboxes (although idlew.exe can open a console window if required).
- idlec.exe: this is the Idle compiler. It compiles a .idle script file either into a .idol byte code file or into a standard Windows executable. If compiling to a .exe file the compiler supports both the GUI and console subsystems as well as compression and encryption. The compiler produces relatively small executables: a minimum Idle script like
print('.')
will produce a .exe file with a size of roundabout 10 KB. Even relatively big Idle scripts of, say, 80 KB length will typically compile to a .exe file of 40 KB or less.
- idle03.dll: this is the Idle runtime library and both the console-mode interpreter and the GUI-mode interpreter access it. The DLL is already UPX compressed: attempts to shrink it any further will need some serious work.
More complex Idle scripts may well need further components (either in the form of pre-compiled DLLs or as modules written in Idle itself). The compiler can easily integrate all required Idle modules into an Idle executable: such a .exe file only requires the DLL runtime. This makes it possible to deploy an Idle application simply by copying two files, the compiled .exe and the runtime DLL (ie idle03.dll).
Besides the Idle standard runtime modules there are a few other modules, notably for networking and database/SQL connectivity. There are also direct interfaces to Perl and the Tiny C compiler. Indeed, the latter can be integrated with any Idle script: this makes it possible to compile and execute C code on the fly.
Who needs yet another scripting language?
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See the Idle FAQ for an answer to that and a few other questions.
The Idle documentation
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The documentation for Idle comes in four main parts:
- Details about the Idle language itself (people already familiar with Lua may want to skim this file or skip to the main differences to Lua)
- The functions in the Idle runtime library and the additional modules
- And finally some FAQs about Idle
If you want to get in touch about any aspect of Idle (I am especially interested in bug reports and feature suggestions), you can do so via either of the following channels:
- (preferred) send an email to idle.script@gmail.com or idle.script@idle.thomaslauer.com
- or post a message via my website's contact page
- for most queries concerning the actual language core you could also try the Lua mailing list
Well, give all this a whirl and tell me what works and what, if anything, doesn't!