module basic
language fostr

/** md
Title: A whirlwind tour of fostr

## Whirlwind tour

fostr is just in its infancy, so it's not yet even ready for
Hello, World. The best we can offer now is this little snippet
that writes the sum of the ASCII codes for 'H', 'W', and '!' to standard output:
```fostr
**/

/** md */ test emit_sum [[
stdio << 72 + 87 + 33
]]/* **/ parse to Receives(Stdio(), Sum([Int("72"), Int("87"), Int("33")]))
/** writes
192**/

/** md
```

At the moment, there are only two ways to run a file containing fostr code
(you can find the above in `tests/emit_sum.fos`). They both start by
cloning this fostr project. Then, either:

1. Open the project in Eclipse and build it, visit your program file,
  generate code from it in your preferred target language (among
  the options available in the "Spoofax > Generate" menu), and execute the
  resulting code. 

1. Use the `bin/fosgen` bash script to generate code in a target language,
  and execute the resulting code.
   
For example, this snippet generates the following Python:
```python
{! ../tests/emit_sum.py extract:
  start: 'Stdio\s='
!}
```
(which writes "192" to standard output), or this non-idiomatic, inefficient, but
working Javascript:
```javascript
{! ../tests/emit_sum.js extract:
  start: '^}'
!}
```
In either case, there's also a preamble defining Stdio that's generated.
(Haskell code generation is also currently supported.)

### Everything has a value

As mentioned in the [Introduction](../README.md), everything in a fostr
program (including the entire program itself) is an expression and has
a value. So what's the value of that expression above? Well, `stdio` is our
first example of a stream, and for convenience, the value of a stream
receiving an item is just the stream back again. The `<<` operator is also
left-associative, so that way we can chain insertions into a stream:
```fostr
**/

/** md */ test emit_twice [[
stdio << 72 + 87 + 33 << 291
]]/* **/ parse to Receives(
  Receives(Stdio(), Sum([Int("72"), Int("87"), Int("33")])),
  Int("291"))
/** writes
192291**/

/** md
```
Running this program produces a nice palindromic output: "192291".
**/