Tomo is a statically typed, safe, simple, lightweight, efficient programming language that cross-compiles to C. Tomo is designed to anticipate and influence the language design decisions of the future.
Please visit tomo.bruce-hill.com for full documentation.
func greeting(name:Text, add_exclamation:Bool -> Text)
message := "hello $name"
message = " ".join([w.title() for w in message.split_any(" ")])
if add_exclamation
message ++= "!!!"
return message
func main(name:Text, shout=no)
to_say := greeting(name, add_exclamation=shout)
say(to_say)
$ tomo hello.tm -- world
Hello World
$ tomo hello.tm -- --name=åke
Hello Åke
$ tomo -e hello.tm
$ ./hello "john doe" --shout
Hello John Doe!!!For more examples, see learnXinY which as an overview of many language features or the other example programs/modules in examples/. You can also look at the core libraries which are implemented in Tomo.
- Generates performant C code with minimal overhead that runs as fast as C code, because it is C code.
- Extremely fast incremental and parallel compilation
- Language-level support for correct function caching
- Structs with known-at-compile-time methods, not OOP objects with vtable lookups
- Memory safety (garbage collection, compiler-enforced null safety, automatic array bounds checking, and no uninitialized variables)
- High-performance arbitrary-precision integers by default with opt-in fixed-size integers with arithmetic overflow checking
- Type-safe strings representing different languages with automatic prevention of code injection
- Pattern matching with exhaustiveness checking for enumerated types (tagged unions/enums)
- Type-safe optional values with low syntax overhead
- Efficient datastructures with immutable value semantics: lists, tables, sets, text.
- Privacy-protecting types that help prevent accidentally logging sensitive information
- Simple, low-boilerplate type system with type inference
- Well-defined reference and value semantics and mutability rules
- No polymorphism, generics, or inheritance
- String interpolation and debug printing builtins
- Built-in datastructures with a rich library of commonly used methods: lists, tables, sets, text.
- Full-featured libraries/modules
- Full UTF8 support for all text operations
- Built-in doctests with syntax highlighting
- Automatic command line argument parsing with type safety
- Easy interoperability with C
- Built-in data serialization and deserialization.
Tomo has a very small set of dependencies:
- GCC version 12 or higher (might work on lower versions, but has not been tested)
- The Boehm garbage collector for runtime garbage collection.
- libunistring for unicode string support (version 1.0 or higher)
- GNU multiple precision arithmetic library for arbitrary precision integer math (version 6.2.1 or higher)
- Binutils to use
addr2linefor stack traces. - and libc/libm, which should definitely already be installed.
If you're feeling incautious, you can run make deps or
./install_dependencies.sh to install all the necessary dependencies. I can't
guarantee this works on all platforms, but has a reasonably high chance of
success.
The Tomo compiler can be compiled with either GCC or Clang by running make.
The first time you build, you will need to specify the Tomo installation
location (the place where the installer will put the tomo binary, the shared
library, and the header files), the Tomo home directory (where Tomo libraries
will be installed), and the default C compiler for Tomo to use when compiling
and running your programs. The answers you give will be saved in config.mk,
which you can edit at any time.
Once the configuration options have been set, make will continue along with
building tomo. The resulting compiler and shared library will be put into
./build/.
You can run make test to verify that everything works correctly.
To run Tomo locally (without installing), you can use the script
./local-tomo, which sets some environment variables and runs the version
of Tomo that you have built in this directory.
You can run a program like this:
./local-tomo my-program.tm
To install Tomo, run:
make install
This will install it to the location you gave during initial configuration.
After this point, you can now run tomo to invoke the compiler and run your
Tomo programs.
To run a Tomo file directly:
tomo foo.tmTo compile a Tomo file into an object file:
tomo -c foo.tm
# Output: .build/foo.tm.oTo transpile a Tomo file into a C header and source file:
tomo -t foo.tm
# Outputs: .build/foo.tm.h .build/foo.tm.cYou can see the full list of compiler options by running man tomo or tomo --help.
Tomo is provided under the Sustainable Use License (see LICENSE.md for full details). This is a source-available fair-code license that does not grant unlimited rights for commercial use, but otherwise has permissive rights for noncommercial use and allows distributing and modifying the source code. It does not comply with the Open Source Initiative's definition of "Open Source", which does not allow any restrictions on commercial use. If you would like to use this project commercially, please contact me to work out a licensing agreement.