This BASIC is styled after Commodore BASIC 7.0 and the Dartmouth BASIC from 1964. It is a C rewrite of basicinterpreter, which was itself built from the instructions for the Java implementation of Lox in craftinginterpreters.com before striking off on its own. The Go version is vendored at deps/basicinterpret and is the behavioural specification: when a question about semantics comes up, the answer lives in that code and in its tests/.

git submodule update --init --recursive
cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build --parallel

# To use the interactive REPL
./build/basic

# To run a basic file from the command line
./build/basic deps/basicinterpret/tests/language/functions.bas

# The test suite: unit tests plus the Go version's own corpus, byte-compared
ctest --test-dir build --output-on-failure

# API documentation, into build/docs/html
doxygen Doxyfile

CI is .gitea/workflows/ci.yaml and runs all four of those: the suite, the doxygen gate, ASan+UBSan, and coverage gated at 90% of lines. The generated API documentation and the coverage report are uploaded as build artifacts (api-documentation and code-coverage).

The Doxyfile is configured the way libakgl's is, including WARN_AS_ERROR = FAIL_ON_WARNINGS — a doc block that documents some of a function's parameters but not all of them fails the run, so doxygen Doxyfile is a gate rather than a convenience. Every one of the 114 public declarations under include/akbasic/ carries a @brief, a @param per parameter, a @return and its @throws.

Why rewrite it in C?

Three reasons, in the order they matter.

The interpreter is meant to end up inside libakgl as a scripting engine for game authors, and libakgl is C. Embedding a Go runtime in a C game is not a thing anybody should do to themselves.

The Go version was already written against static pools and explicit state structs — [MAX_SOURCE_LINES]BasicSourceLine, a fixed variable pool, a 32-leaf ceiling per line — so it ports across almost directly. It reads like C that happens to be spelled in Go. Rewriting it in the idiom of libakerror and libakstdlib was less work than it sounds.

And the port is a good excuse to find out what the original actually does, as opposed to what it looks like it does. It found five defects nobody knew about. See "What Isn't Implemented / Isn't Working", below.

What Works?

Everything the Go version does. All 41 .bas files in deps/basicinterpret/tests/ produce byte-identical output from both implementations, including error messages and the trailing blank line after one. Those files are driven in place as individual CTest cases rather than copied, so the corpus cannot drift from upstream.

Case Sensitivity

The old computers BASIC was originally written on only had CAPITAL LETTER KEYS on their keyboards. Modern keyboards have the indescribable luxury of upper and lower case. In this basic, verbs and function names are case insensitive. Variable names are case sensitive.

Variables

• A# Integer variables
• A% Float variables
• A$ String variables. Strings support addition operations with other types.
• LET is supported but optional
• Variables are strongly typed

Note that % means float here, which inverts the Commodore convention where % is integer. That is what the Go version does and it is not being changed out from under anybody.

Arrays

• DIM IDENTIFIER(DIMENSION[, ...]) allows for provisioning of multiple dimensional arrays
• DIM A$(3) results in a single dimensional array of strings with 3 elements
• PRINT A$(2) accesses the last element in an array and returns it to the verb
• LEN(A#) on an array returns its total element count
• Arrays are strongly typed

Expressions

• +
• -
• ^
• * (also works on strings)
• /
• < <= <> == >= > less than, less than equal, not equal, equal, greater equal, greater than

Expressions can be grouped with () arbitrarily deeply. Currently the interpreter has a limit of 32 tokens and leaves per line. In effect this means about 16 operations in a single line.

Commands (Verbs)

The following commands/verbs are implemented:

• AUTO n : Turn automatic line numbering on/off at increments of n
• REM : everything after this is a comment
• DATA LITERAL[, ...]: Define a series of literal values that can be read by a preceding READ verb
• DEF FN(X, ...) = expression : Define a function with arguments that performs a given expression. See also "Subroutines", below.
• DELETE [n-n]: Delete some portion of the lines in the current program
  • DELETE: Delete ALL lines in the program
  • DELETE n-n: Delete lines between n and n (inclusive)
  • DELETE -n: Delete lines from 0 to n
  • DELETE n: Delete lines from n to the end of the program
• DLOAD FILENAME: Load the BASIC program in the file FILENAME (string literal or string variable) into memory
• DSAVE FILENAME: Save the current BASIC program in memory to the file specified by FILENAME (string literal or string variable)
• EXIT: Exit a loop before it would normally finish
• FOR : Iterate over a range of values and perform (statement) or block each time.

10 FOR I# = 1 TO 5
20 REM Do some stuff in here
30 NEXT I#

10 FOR I# = 1 TO 5 STEP 2
20 REM Do some stuff here
30 NEXT I#

• GOTO n: Go to line n in the program
• GOSUB n: Go to line n in the program and return here when RETURN is found
• IF (comparison) THEN (statement) [ELSE (statement)] : Conditional branching
• INPUT "PROMPT STRING" VARIABLE: Read input from the user and store it in the named variable
• LABEL IDENTIFIER: Place a label at the current line number. Labels are constant integer identifiers that can be used in expressions like variables (including GOTO) but which cannot be assigned to. Labels do not have a type suffix ($, # or %).
• LIST [n-n]: List all or a portion of the lines in the current program, with the same range forms as DELETE
• POKE ADDRESS, VALUE: Poke the single byte VALUE into the ADDRESS
• PRINT (expression)
• QUIT : Exit the interpreter
• READ IDENTIFIER[, ...] : Fill the named variables with data from a subsequent DATA statement
• RETURN : return from GOSUB to the point where it was called
• RUN [n]: Run the program currently in memory, optionally starting at line n
• STOP: Stop program execution at the current point

Functions

The following functions are implemented

• ABS(x#|x%): Return the absolute value of the float or integer argument
• ATN(x#|x%): Return the arctangent of the float or integer argument. Input and output are in radians.
• CHR(x#): Return the character value of the UTF-8 unicode codepoint in x#. Returns as a string.
• COS(x#|x%): Return the cosine of the float or integer argument. Input and output are in radians.
• HEX(x#): Return the string representation of the integer number in x#
• INSTR(X$, Y$): Return the index of Y$ within X$ (-1 if not present)
• LEN(var$): Return the length of the object var$ (either a string or an array)
• LEFT(X$, Y#): Return the leftmost Y# characters of the string in X$. Y# is clamped to LEN(X$).
• LOG(X#|X%): Return the natural logarithm of X#|X%
• MID(var$, start, length) : Return a substring from var$
• MOD(x#, y#): Return the modulus of ( x / y). Only works on integers.
• PEEK(X): Return the value of the BYTE at the memory location of integer X and return it as an integer
• POINTER(X): Return the address in memory for the value of the variable identified in X. This is the direct integer, float or string value stored, it is not a reference to the internal variable structure.
• POINTERVAR(X) : Return the address in memory of the variable X. This is the address of the internal akbasic_Variable structure, which includes additional metadata about the variable, in addition to the value. For a pointer directly to the value, use POINTER.
• RAD(X#|X%): Convert degrees to radians
• RIGHT(X$, Y#): Return the rightmost Y# characters of the string in X$. Y# is clamped to LEN(X$).
• SGN(X#): Returns the sign of X# (-1 for negative, 1 for positive, 0 if 0).
• SHL(X#, Y#): Returns the value of X# shifted left Y# bits
• SHR(X#, Y#): Returns the value of X# shifted right Y# bits
• SIN(X#|X%): Returns the sine of the float or integer argument. Input and output are radians.
• SPC(X#): Returns a string of X# spaces. This is included for compatibility, you can also use (" " * X) to multiply strings.
• STR(X#): Returns the string representation of X.
• TAN(X#|X%): Returns the tangent of the float or integer variable X. Input and output are in radians.
• VAL(X$): Returns the float value of the number in X$
• XOR(X#, Y#): Performs a bitwise exclusive OR on the two integer arguments

Unlike the Go version, none of these are bootstrapped by running a BASIC program of DEF statements through the interpreter at startup. A builtin's name, arity and handler are one row in the dispatch table in src/verbs.c, which means the interpreter no longer has to be running before the interpreter is ready.

Subroutines

In addition to DEF, GOTO and GOSUB, this BASIC also implements subroutines that accept arguments, return a value, and can be called as functions. Example

10 DEF ADDTWO(A#, B#)
20 C# = A# + B#
30 RETURN C#
40 D# = ADDTWO(3, 5)
50 PRINT D#

Subroutines must be defined before they are called. Subroutines share the global variable scope with the rest of the program.

Embedding the interpreter

The whole point of the rewrite. libakbasic is a static library with a thin src/main.c driver on top; the REPL, argv handling and QUIT belong to the driver, not to the library. A host program links the library and keeps control.

Four rules the library holds to, because a game engine cannot tolerate a scripting language that breaks any of them:

• Nothing terminates the process. No exit(), no abort(), no panic. Errors come back as akerr_ErrorContext *. FINISH_NORETURN never appears in the library at all — only in a main(), which today means the driver's and the embedding example's.
• Nothing calls malloc. Every object comes from a fixed pool inside akbasic_Runtime. Exhausting one is a diagnosable error, not a crash and not a slow leak.
• No file-scope mutable state. Interpreter state lives in an akbasic_Runtime you own. Two of them in one process do not interfere.
• The host owns the loop. akbasic_runtime_run(rt, n) executes at most n source lines and returns. A script with an infinite loop costs you n lines per frame and nothing else.

A complete, compiled, runnable example is in examples/embed.c — it is built by every build and registered as a test, so it cannot rot. The shape is:

#include <akerror.h>
#include <akbasic/runtime.h>
#include <akbasic/sink.h>

/*
 * The runtime carries every pool the interpreter owns -- a few megabytes -- so
 * it goes in static storage or inside your own game state, never on the stack.
 */
static akbasic_Runtime SCRIPT;

static const char *PROGRAM =
    "10 PRINT \"COUNTING:\"\n"
    "20 FOR I# = 1 TO 5\n"
    "30   PRINT I# * I#\n"
    "40 NEXT I#\n";

akerr_ErrorContext AKERR_NOIGNORE *script_start(akbasic_TextSink *sink)
{
    PREPARE_ERROR(errctx);

    PASS(errctx, akbasic_runtime_init(&SCRIPT, sink));
    PASS(errctx, akbasic_runtime_load(&SCRIPT, PROGRAM));
    PASS(errctx, akbasic_runtime_start(&SCRIPT, AKBASIC_MODE_RUN));
    SUCCEED_RETURN(errctx);
}

/* Call this once per frame. Eight source lines, then back to your renderer. */
akerr_ErrorContext AKERR_NOIGNORE *script_tick(void)
{
    PREPARE_ERROR(errctx);

    if ( SCRIPT.mode == AKBASIC_MODE_QUIT ) {
	SUCCEED_RETURN(errctx);
    }
    PASS(errctx, akbasic_runtime_run(&SCRIPT, 8));
    SUCCEED_RETURN(errctx);
}

Exchanging variables with the host

Yes — in both directions, for integers, floats and strings, using the same variable pool the script itself uses. There is no marshalling layer and no copy: the host and the script are looking at the same akbasic_Value.

akbasic_environment_get() finds a variable by name and creates it if it does not exist. The type comes from the name's suffix, exactly as it does for BASIC code, so HP# is an integer and NAME$ is a string. Every scalar is really a one-element array, which is why the subscript list is {0} with a count of 1.

/* host -> script, before the script starts */
akerr_ErrorContext AKERR_NOIGNORE *host_set_int(akbasic_Runtime *obj, const char *name, int64_t value)
{
    PREPARE_ERROR(errctx);
    akbasic_Variable *variable = NULL;
    int64_t subscript[1] = { 0 };

    PASS(errctx, akbasic_environment_get(obj->environment, name, &variable));
    FAIL_ZERO_RETURN(errctx, (variable != NULL), AKERR_KEY,
		     "could not reach variable %s from the active scope", name);
    PASS(errctx, akbasic_variable_set_integer(variable, value, subscript, 1));
    SUCCEED_RETURN(errctx);
}

/* script -> host, after it stops */
akerr_ErrorContext AKERR_NOIGNORE *host_get_int(akbasic_Runtime *obj, const char *name, int64_t *dest)
{
    PREPARE_ERROR(errctx);
    akbasic_Variable *variable = NULL;
    akbasic_Value *value = NULL;
    int64_t subscript[1] = { 0 };

    PASS(errctx, akbasic_environment_get(obj->environment, name, &variable));
    FAIL_ZERO_RETURN(errctx, (variable != NULL), AKERR_KEY, "no variable %s", name);
    PASS(errctx, akbasic_variable_get_subscript(variable, subscript, 1, &value));
    FAIL_NONZERO_RETURN(errctx, (value->valuetype != AKBASIC_TYPE_INTEGER), AKBASIC_ERR_TYPE,
			"%s is not an integer", name);
    *dest = value->intval;
    SUCCEED_RETURN(errctx);
}

Used like this, with akbasic_variable_set_string and set_float as the other two:

CATCH(errctx, akbasic_runtime_load(&SCRIPT, PROGRAM));

CATCH(errctx, host_set_int(&SCRIPT, "HP#", 100));          /* seed */
CATCH(errctx, host_set_int(&SCRIPT, "LEVEL#", 7));
CATCH(errctx, host_set_string(&SCRIPT, "NAME$", "LINK"));

CATCH(errctx, akbasic_runtime_start(&SCRIPT, AKBASIC_MODE_RUN));
CATCH(errctx, akbasic_runtime_run(&SCRIPT, 0));

CATCH(errctx, host_get_int(&SCRIPT, "SCORE#", &score));    /* collect */

The full thing, including the string and float forms, is in examples/hostvars.c. It is built and run by every build.

The one rule: seed before, read after

Do this between runs, not during one. Seed before akbasic_runtime_start() and read after the script has stopped. Poking a variable while a script is suspended part-way through a bounded akbasic_runtime_run() is sharp in two ways, and both are silent:

• A suspended script is usually inside a FOR or GOSUB scope, and obj->environment is that scope rather than the global one. A variable created there dies when the scope pops — the script reads it correctly inside the loop and gets 0 the moment the loop ends.
• Reaching for the global scope explicitly does not help. Only the currently active environment auto-creates, so akbasic_environment_get(root, "NEW#", &var) with a child active hands back NULL and no error, and an unchecked host dereferences it.

Reading and updating an existing global is safe at any time — the parent chain is searched, so a variable that already exists in the global scope is found from anywhere. It is only creation that lands in the wrong place.

examples/hostvars.c demonstrates both hazards rather than describing them. This is filed as TODO.md section 6 item 17; the fix is a small akbasic_runtime_global() that resolves against the root scope regardless of what is active.

Where the output goes

PRINT writes through an akbasic_TextSink, which is a record of function pointers plus whatever state you hang off self:

typedef struct akbasic_TextSink
{
    void *self;
    akerr_ErrorContext AKERR_NOIGNORE *(*write)(struct akbasic_TextSink *self, const char *text);
    akerr_ErrorContext AKERR_NOIGNORE *(*writeln)(struct akbasic_TextSink *self, const char *text);
    akerr_ErrorContext AKERR_NOIGNORE *(*readline)(struct akbasic_TextSink *self, char *dest, size_t len, bool *eof);
    akerr_ErrorContext AKERR_NOIGNORE *(*clear)(struct akbasic_TextSink *self);
} akbasic_TextSink;

akbasic_sink_init_stdio() ships with the library and is what the driver and the golden-file suite use. A game supplies its own and draws into a text layer. The interpreter never owns a window, a renderer or an event loop, and readline is expected to set *eof rather than block — that is how INPUT behaves sanely inside a frame.

Error codes

The library reserves status values 512–767 with libakerror's registry, under the owner string "akbasic". akbasic_runtime_init() claims the range for you and is idempotent, so calling it twice is harmless and calling it after your own initialization is fine. If something else in the process already owns part of that band, init fails loudly rather than silently aliasing your error codes onto somebody else's.

For reference, the coordinated map across this dependency stack is libakerror 0–255, libakgl 256–260, and akbasic 512–767.

Linking

add_subdirectory(deps/akbasic EXCLUDE_FROM_ALL)
target_link_libraries(YOUR_GAME PRIVATE akbasic::akbasic)

akbasic links akerror::akerror and akstdlib::akstdlib publicly, so you inherit both. If your project already declares those targets, declare them before adding this one — the same rule that applies to libakgl.

libakgl itself is not a dependency of the core library. -DAKBASIC_WITH_AKGL=ON builds an additional akbasic_akgl target carrying the akgl-backed text sink; it is off by default, which is why the interpreter and its whole test suite build on a machine with no SDL.

Limits

Everything is bounded and pre-declared. The numbers are in include/akbasic/types.h and are the Go version's, plus three the Go version did not need because it called make():

Constant	Value	What it bounds
AKBASIC_MAX_LEAVES / _TOKENS	32	AST nodes and tokens per source line (~16 operations)
AKBASIC_MAX_VALUES	64	Intermediate values per line
AKBASIC_MAX_VARIABLES	128	Variables per scope
AKBASIC_MAX_SOURCE_LINES	9999	Program length
AKBASIC_MAX_LINE_LENGTH	256	Characters per line
AKBASIC_MAX_STRING_LENGTH	256	Characters in a string value
AKBASIC_MAX_ENVIRONMENTS	32	Nesting depth of FOR and GOSUB
AKBASIC_MAX_ARRAY_ELEMENTS	1024	Elements in one array
AKBASIC_MAX_ARRAY_VALUES	4096	Array elements across all variables

Raising any of them costs BSS and nothing else. An akbasic_Runtime is presently 10.1MB, and it is worth knowing where that goes before you reach for a knob: 4.1MB is the environment pool, 2.5MB the 9999-line source table, 2.3MB the function-definition pool and 1.2MB the array value pool. AKBASIC_MAX_ENVIRONMENTS is the expensive one — each environment carries its own token, leaf and value arrays — so halving it to 16 saves twice what halving the source table does.

What Isn't Implemented / Isn't Working

Defects inherited from the Go version

These are reproduced deliberately, not fixed. The Go version's test corpus is the acceptance suite, so a silent correction here is a behaviour change that would show up as a failing golden file. Each is catalogued in TODO.md section 6 with the file and line, and tests/known_reference_defects.c asserts the correct contract for six of them under AKBASIC_KNOWN_FAILING_TESTS — when one is fixed, CTest reports "unexpectedly passed", which is the cue to move it.

Five of them the port found; nobody knew about these before:

• 1 - 2 - 3 computes 1 - 2. Subtraction stops after one operator where addition loops, so the rest of the line is abandoned in the token stream. This is the bad one — it is a wrong answer, not a refused one. 2 ^ 3 ^ 2 has the same shape.
• A negative literal cannot be passed to a builtin. ABS(-9) is rejected with "function ABS takes 1 arguments, received 2", because the arity counter walks the same .right pointer a unary-minus leaf keeps its operand on. Assign to a variable first, as the Go version's own sgn.bas test quietly does.
• A comparison operator in a line's final column is dropped. A# = produces one token, not two, because the scanner cannot peek past the end of the line and gives up without recording the operator.
• Hex literals do not work. 0xff lexes as 0x followed by an identifier ff. The base-16 branch in the literal parser is unreachable, so the hex support the Go README implies has never existed.
• PRINT$ is accepted as a variable name. The "Reserved word in variable name" check compares the lexeme including its type suffix against the keyword table, so it never matches and never fires.

Plus six more the original already carried: a leading 0 selects base 8, so PRINT 010 prints 8 and PRINT 08 will not parse; setBoolean tags the value it builds TYPE_STRING; stopWaiting ignores its argument, so an inner block can clear an outer block's pending wait; toString on a variable has its emptiness test inverted; EXIT pops a loop without clearing that wait; and mathPlus mutates its left operand in place where every other operator clones. That last one is load-bearing rather than merely wrong — NEXT relies on it to advance the loop counter, so it cannot be fixed on its own.

Not implemented

• Multiple statements on one line (e.g. 10 PRINT A$ : REM This prints the thing). The COLON token exists and nothing consumes it.
• Using an array reference inside a parameter list (e.g. READ A$(0), B#) results in parsing errors
• APPEND, BACKUP, BEGIN, BEND, BLOAD, BOOT, BOX, BSAVE
• CATALOG, CHAR, CIRCLE, CLOSE, CLR, CMD, COLLECT, COLLISION, COLOR, CONCAT, CONT, COPY
• DCLEAR, DCLOSE, DIRECTORY, DOPEN, DRAW, DVERIFY
• DO, LOOP, WHILE, UNTIL. You can do the same thing with IF and GOTO.
• END, ENVELOPE, ER, ERR
• FETCH, FILTER
• GET, GETKEY, GRAPHIC, GSHAPE
• HEADER, HELP
• KEY, LOAD, LOCATE
• MOVSPR, NEW, ON, PAINT, PLAY, PUDEF
• RENAME, RENUMBER, RESTORE, RESUME
• SAVE, SCALE, SCNCLR, SCRATCH, SLEEP, SOUND
• SPRCOLOR, SPRDEF, SPRITE, SPRSAV, SSHAPE, STASH, SWAP, SYS
• TEMPO, TI, TRAP, TROFF, TRON
• USING, VERIFY, VOL, WAIT, WIDTH, WINDOW
• The I/O-channel variants (GETIO, INPUTIO, OPENIO, PRINTIO, RECORDIO)

Four of those are blocked on capabilities libakgl does not have yet — text measurement, immediate-mode drawing, audio, and a non-blocking keystroke read. Rather than work around them here, they are filed in deps/libakgl/TODO.md under "API gaps blocking akbasic", with the entry point each one wants.

Deliberately out of scope

• BANK - the modern PC memory layout is incompatible with the idea of bank switching
• FAST - Irrelevant on modern PC CPUs
• MONITOR - there is no machine-language monitor to drop into

Dependencies

• libakerror 1.0.0 — TRY/CATCH-style error contexts. Every function that can fail returns one.
• libakstdlib 0.1.0 — libc wrappers that report through libakerror.
• libakgl 0.1.0 — optional, only for -DAKBASIC_WITH_AKGL=ON. Pulls in SDL3.
• basicinterpret — the Go original, vendored as the behavioural spec and the acceptance corpus. Not linked, not built.

Everything is a submodule; git submodule update --init --recursive gets all of it. There is nothing to install first.

Note that libakstdlib's aksl_atoi/atol/atoll/atof family is deliberately not used here, because it cannot report a conversion failure — atoi("not a number") returns success with 0. src/convert.c wraps strtoll/strtod with the strict contract instead, and TODO.md section 1.9 records which of that library's calls are cleared for use. That file will be deleted when libakstdlib grows the wrappers its own TODO.md section 3.1 already calls for.