Quick Start

Quick Start

tiko is distributed as a toolchain: the compiler, its headers, its runtime libraries and its packages in one directory. Toolchains are published ready-built, so getting started is a download, not a build.

What you need

• A toolchain. Download the newest release titled tiko toolchains from Releases: tiko-windows-x86_64-<commit>.zip for Windows, tiko-linux-x86_64-<commit>.tar.gz for Linux, tiko-macos-arm64-<commit>.tar.gz for macOS on Apple Silicon. Unpack it anywhere; it holds one directory, tiko-lang/, on every system.
• tkEdit, the editor, comes in the same directory, beside the compiler: tiko-lang\tkedit.exe on Windows, tiko-lang/tkedit on Linux, tiko-lang/tkEdit.app on macOS -- in the top of the directory on every system. It is one file -- its fonts, themes and libraries are inside it -- and it finds the compiler next to itself or in bin/. It has a debugger too: F9 sets a breakpoint and F6 runs to it (see Debugging).
• clang 18 or newer. It is not bundled: tiko uses it to compile and to link. tiko takes the first it finds of TIKO_CLANG, then C:\Program Files\LLVM\bin\clang.exe on Windows, /usr/bin/clang on Linux or /opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin/clang on macOS, then clang on PATH.

Compile a program

tiko-lang\tiko.exe hello.tiko
hello.exe

tiko-lang/bin/tiko hello.tiko
./hello

The same on Linux and macOS. No flags are needed. tiko finds its headers and libraries relative to its own executable, and the default target is the host's: windows-x86_64 on Windows, linux-x86_64 on Linux, macos-arm64 on macOS.

Installing on macOS

tiko runs on Apple Silicon Macs with macOS 13 or newer.

• Xcode's Command Line Tools: xcode-select --install. Every link uses the macOS SDK and Apple's linker from them.
• Homebrew's LLVM: brew install llvm. Homebrew does not put this clang on PATH, and tiko does not need it there: it looks in /opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin itself.
• Clear the download quarantine before the first run. A browser marks what it downloads, and macOS then refuses the unsigned compiler: it hangs rather than failing. Unpack, then:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine tiko-lang

An archive fetched with curl or gh release download is not marked.

Optional, also from Homebrew: openssl@3 for std/tls and std/http, and sdl3 (with sdl3_image, sdl3_ttf, sdl3_mixer) for vendor/SDL3. There is no graphics library on macOS (SCREEN, PSET), as on Linux.

A first tour

#import "std/containers"

'' generics
type Box( of T )
    as T value
end type

dim b as Box( of int32 )
b.value = 7

'' a typed container, and for each over it
dim names as containers.Array( of ustring )
names.Push( "ada" )
names.Push( "grace" )

for each n as ustring in names
    print n
next

'' multiple return, by tuple
function MinMax( ) as (min as int32, max as int32)
    return (3, 9)
end function

var (lo, hi) = MinMax( )
print lo, hi

'' defer runs on the way out of the scope, on every path
scope
    defer print "cleaned up"
    print "working"
end scope

It prints:

ada
grace
 3             9
working
cleaned up

Building a toolchain from source

Only needed to work on the compiler itself. From Git Bash on Windows, or from Linux, WSL or macOS:

git clone https://github.com/PaulSquires/tiko-lang.git
cd tiko-lang
sh seed/fetch-seed.sh
bash build/package.sh --verify

tiko builds tiko: the build compiles it with a seed, the earlier tiko release that seed/seed.lock pins. sh seed/fetch-seed.sh downloads it (through gh while the repository is private) and checks its SHA-256 before unpacking it into seed/cache/. package.sh then builds the compiler, the runtime and the graphics library, and assembles toolchains/tiko-windows/ or toolchains/tiko-linux/. It compiles and runs a program per target and records the result in MANIFEST.txt.

Next

• Feature Index — every language feature and library, with its reference page.
• Compatibility — what changes for FreeBASIC code you already have.
• Keyword Index — every keyword, A–Z.