Lisp in TypeScript

This is a Lisp interpreter compatible with lisp-in-dart, lisp-in-cs and lisp-in-go.

I first wrote it three years ago (2016 or H28) in TypeScript 1.7 and revised it slightly one year later (2017 or H29) in TypeScript 2.2. It had been presented under the MIT License at http://www.oki-osk.jp/esc/typescript/lisp-en.html (broken link) until the spring of 2017 (H29). I made the repository in GitHub last year (2018 or H30).

Now (2019 or R1) I made use of BigInt if possible. If you run it on a recent Node.js, you will enjoy infinite-precision integers. I also revised REPL.

Just as lisp-in-dart, lisp-in-cs and lisp-in-go, this is a Lisp-1 with TCO (tail call optimization) and partially hygienic macros but being a subset of Common Lisp in a loose meaning. It is easy to write a nontrivial script which runs both in this and in Common Lisp. Examples are found in lisp-in-dart/examples.

How to run

Compile lisp.ts with TypeScript 3.7 or later to get lisp.js, or just use examples/lisp.js, which I provided in the same way.

$ tsc --version
Version 3.7.2
$ tsc -t ESNext --outFile list.js lisp.ts

Run lis.js with Node.js.

$ node --version
v12.12.0
$ node lisp.js
> (+ 5 6)
11
> `(a b ,(cons 'c 'd))
(a b (c . d))
> (list
  1
  2
  3)
(1 2 3)
> (defun fact (n)
     (if (= n 0)
         1
       (* n
          (fact (- n 1)) )))
fact
> (fact 100)
93326215443944152681699238856266700490715968264381621468592963895217599993229915
608941463976156518286253697920827223758251185210916864000000000000000000000000
> (dump)
(fact dotimes dolist while nconc last nreverse _nreverse assoc assq member memq
listp or mapcar and append _append letrec let when if equal /= <= >= > setcdr se
tcar null rem = identity print consp not cdddr cddar cdadr cdaar caddr cadar caa
dr caaar cddr cdar cadr caar defun defmacro *version* dump exit apply symbol-nam
e intern make-symbol gensym *gensym-counter* terpri princ prin1 truncate / - * +
mod % < eql numberp stringp length rplacd rplaca list eq atom cons cdr car)
> *version*
(2.0 "TypeScript" "Nukata Lisp")
> (exit 0)
$

You can run it with Lisp script(s). If you put a "-" after the scripts, it will begin an interactive session after running the scripts.

$ cat examples/fib.l
(defun fib (n)
  (if (<= n 1)
      n
    (+ (fib (- n 1))
       (fib (- n 2)))))
$ node lisp.js examples/fib.l -
> (fib 10)
55
> (fib 20)
6765
> (exit 0)
$ 

You can use lisp.js also from an HTML file to run the Lisp interpreter on Web browsers. See a simple example of exmples/run-on-web.html.

$ open examples/run-on-web.html

License

This is under the MIT License.