Keg -- (Ke)yboard (G)olfed

Keg is a stack-based esolang with condensability as well as simplicity and readability in mind. It's main purpose is to be used for golfing, although it can be potentially used for other purposes. What makes this esolang different from others is that:

• Alphanumerical characters are automatically pushed (no need to wrap them in quotation marks)
• There are readable and intuitive if statements, for and while loops
• The number of functions to remember is small
• And much more

A Few Conventions of This Document

• ∆ ... ∆ in a code snippet means that the code in the ... is optional
• > in a code snippet means an input prompt
• >>> in a code snippet means a command prompt

Design Principles

The main inspiration for Keg comes from a want of an esolang where only symbols count as commands and everything else is pushed onto the stack as a literal. This is why there are only 12 functions, 7 'keywords' and 8 operators. As such, this system allows for shorter programs where strings are involved (uncompressed strings in Keg are usually 1-2 bytes shorter than their counterparts in other languages).

Another design feature of Keg is the look of if statements, for loops and while loops. These structures take on the form of:

B...B

Where B is any of the three brackets ((/), [/] or {/}) and ... is any body of code

The Basics

Most tutorials show how to print the string Hello, World! , so that's what this tutorial will do as well. Here is a simple 21 byte program to achieve the goal.

Hello\, World\!^(!|,)

Explanation

Hello #Push the characters "H", "e", "l", "l" and "o" to the stack
\, #Escape the "," and push it to the stack
World #Push the characters "W", "o", "r", "l" and "d" to the stack
\! #Escape the "!" and push it to the stack
^ #Reverse the stack
(!| #Start a for loop and set the count to the length of the stack
    , #Print the last item on the stack as a character
)

In the above example, 6 new functions and keywords are introduced:

\ : Escapes the next command, and instead pushes it as a string (pushes its ascii value) , : Prints the last item on the stack as a character ! : Pushes the length of the stack onto the stack ^ : Reverses the stack (...) : The for loop structure | : Used in structures to switch from one branch to the other.

The Stack

One of the most important parts of Keg is the stack, which is where all operations are performed. A stack is a type of container (or list) where the last item in the container is the first item to be operated on (LIFO -- Last In First Out). In the following examples, the stack will be investigated.

3# [3]
4# [3, 4]
+# [7]

In the above example, the numbers 3 and 4 are pushed onto the stack, and are then added using the + operator. The way it works is that the + pops what will be called x and y off the stack (the first and second last item) and pushes y + x back onto the stack. Note that the order of x and y are important when using the - and \ operators, as x - y doesn't equal y - x most of the time (as is the same with x / y and y / x). This can be seen in the following example:

34-.#Outputs -1
43-.#Outputs 1
34/.#Outputs 0.75
43/.#Outputs 1.333333333333

Note that the . function prints the last item on the stack as an integer.

Input and Output

Keg has two output functions and one input function. When taking input from the user, the next line from the Standard Input and push the ascii value of each character onto the stack. It will not push -1 anymore onto the stack to sigify the end of input (input as integers will be coming in a later version of Keg). Input is taken using the ? command, as shown in the example program:

?(!|,)

# > Example text
# Example text

The two output functions (. -- Print as integer and , -- Print as string) have already been detailed in other sections

Program Flow

If Statements

As mentioned in the introduction, Keg has a readable and intuative way of expressing if statements, for and while loops. The form of an if statement is:

[...1 ∆| ...2∆]

When an if statement is run, the last item on the stack is popped, and if it is non-zero, ...1 is executed. If there is a |...2, it is executed if the popped value is 0.

For Loops

The form of a for loop is:

(∆...1|∆ ...2)

When a for loop is run, if ...1 is present, it will be evaluated as used as the number of times the loop will be run (if it isn't given, the length of the stack will be used). ...2 is the body of the for loop, which will be executed.

While Loops

The form of a while loop is:

{ ∆...1|∆ ...2}

When a while loop is run, ...1 (if given) will be the condition of the loop (if it isn't present, 1 will be used as the condition of the loop) and ...2 will be executed until the given condition is false.

User Defined Functions

One of the special features of Keg is user-defined functions, which are defined using the following form:

@name ∆n∆ | ...@

Where: name = the name of the function (note that it needs to be one full word, and that it can't contain any @'s) n = the number of items popped from the stack ... = the body of the function

If n isn't present, no items will be popped from the stack, and all code in the function will be applied to the main stack

Special Bits

• If nothing is printed during the run of the program, the whole stack will be joined together (stringified, with values less than 10 or greater than 256 being treated as integers) and printed

• Closing brackets can be left out of programs, and will be auto-completed in a LIFO matter

• There is also implicit input. If you use ^ and : on an empty stack, one line of input will be taken.

• The next edit of the interpreter does not have -1's being pushed to the input.

Example Programs

Hello World, Further Golfed

Hello\, World\!

Cat Program

^

Fizzbuzz Program

0(d|1+:35*%0=[ zzubzziF(9|,)|:5%0=[ zzuB(5|,)|:3%0=[ zziF(5|,)|:. ,]]])

99 Bottles of Beer Program

c&(c|&:.& bottles of beer on the wall\, ^(!|,)&:.& bottles of beer\.91+^(!|,)Take one down\, pass it around\, ^(!|,)&1-&&:.& bottles of beer on the wall\.91+^(!|,))

Quine

Q

This can be any series of alphabetical letters

Command Glossary

If the ^ or : commands tried to operate on an empty stack, an input will be taken (for shorter programs).

Command	Description	Usage	Notes
!	Pushes the length of the stack onto the stack	!
:	Duplicates the last item on the stack	:
_	Removes the last item on the stack	_
,	Prints the last item on the stack as a character	,
.	Prints the last item on the stack as an integer	.
?	Gets input from the user	?
'	Left shifts the stack	'
"	Right shifts the stack	"
~	Pushes a random number onto the stack	~	The number will be between 0 and 32767
^	Reverses the stack	^
$	Swaps the top two items on the stack	$
#	Starts a comment	#
|	Branches to the next section of a structure	B...|...B	B is any one bracket type
\	Escapes the next command, and pushes it as a string	\<command>
&	Gets/sets the register value	&
@	Define/call a function	@ name ∆n∆ | ...@
+	Pops x and y and pushes y + x	<value><value>+
-	Pops x and y and pushes y - x	<value><value>-
*	Pops x and y and pushes y * x	<value><value>*
/	Pops x and y and pushes y / x	<value><value>/	Divison by zero gives an error
%	Pops x and y and pushes y % x	<value><value>%	Divison by zero gives an error
<	Pops x and y and pushes y < x	<value><value><
>	Pops x and y and pushes y > x	<value><value>>
=	Pops x and y and pushes y == x	<value><value>=
0-9	Pushes the given integer onto the stack	<value>
a-z, A-Z	Pushes the ascii value of the given character onto the stack	<value>

Extended command glossary

These commands are added to Keg in order to make Keg programs shorter. These instructions can be implemented in Keg quite easily. These are NOT part of the official Keg. (From A__)

Command	Description	Usage	Notes&Implementation
Ï	Replaces the top of stack with all items from top to 0	Ï	this is under EASCII, of course; (:|:1-)
;	Decrement the top of the stack	;	1-
Ë	Exponentation	Ë	# Unknown
§	Sine function	§	# Unknown
¿	Nice input	¿	Tries to eval as Float > Integer > List > String
∂	Exclusive range	∂	Pops x, y and z and pushes z in range(y, x)
•	Inclusive range	•	Pops x, y and z and pushes z in range(y, x + 1)
ɧ	Generate range	ɧ	Pops x and y and pushes range(y, x + 1)
÷	Item split	÷	Splits the top of stack into seperate parts
¡	Factorial	¡	Takes the factorial of the top of the stack
ø	Empties the stack	ø	None
Ω	Prints the entire stack	Ω	None
∑	Apply to all the stack	∑	Preprocesses to `(!;
¬	Logically nots the top of the stack	¬	None
½	Halves the top of the stack	½	None

Keg+ Extension

Command	Description	Usage	Notes	Implemented?
‡	Reads the source code until a non-number character is found	‡<number>	Non-number character means that it isn't a valid float/integer	No
ℤℝ⅍℠ⁿ	Converts the top of the stack to the desired type (integer, float, stack, string, character respectively)	<type>		Yes
⟰⟱⟷	Takes the top of the stack and uppercases it, lowercases it or togglecases it respectively	<mode>	Doesn't do anything to non-strings	Yes
²	Squares the top of the stack	²	Performs top * top	Yes
᠀	Take input as a string	᠀		Yes
∀	Pushes 1 if everything on the stack is true, otherwise 0	∀	Doesn't pop things from the stack	Yes
≌	Like above, but if everything is the same	≌		Yes
⅀	Summates the entire stack	⅀	Pretty much just ∑+)	Yes
ß	Takes the top of the stack and executes it as Keg code	ß		Kind of
©	Get the value of a variable	©name	name has to only contain letters	Yes
®	Set the value of a variable to the top of the stack (popping it)	®name	Same as above	Yes