carp-docs

How to run code

This document is aimed at people just starting out with Carp, in particular if you want to try out the examples.

Prerequisites

Make sure that you have installed the Carp compiler and its dependencies and that you can start it without any error messages.

Here’s how it should look:

$ carp
Welcome to Carp X.Y.Z
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
Evaluate (help) for more information.
鲤

The 鲤 character on the last line is the REPL prompt, it means that Carp is waiting for you to enter a command.

Running code from the REPL

You can load some code with:

鲤 (load "some_file.carp")

The path to the file should be relative to where you started carp (or the file has to be in your search-path path). It is also possible to paste a block of code (even multiple top-level expressions) into the REPL.

To build and run, first do:

鲤 (build)

And then:

鲤 (run)

Running code from the terminal

If you don’t want to work in the REPL and use a more classic “compile & run” setup, do this:

$ carp some_file.carp -x

Any files you list as arguments to carp will be loaded (this works when starting the REPL too). The -x flag means that you want to compile and run the code immedately, exiting afterwards.

If you just want to build the executable, use -b instead:

$ carp some_file.carp -b