Lx — Scripting Language

Lx is a small, interpreted, dynamically typed scripting language with a PHP-like surface syntax.
It is a minimal runtime interpreter with no bytecode or VM layer.

Lx: Power without noise

Technical overview

Lx is a small interpreted language implemented in C. The front‑end is a hand‑written lexer and recursive‑descent parser that builds an AST for expressions, statements, and control flow. The runtime evaluates the AST directly (no bytecode), with a dynamic Value type supporting int, float, bool, string, array, null/undefined/void. Arrays are associative (int/string keys) and use reference counting with a periodic mark‑and‑sweep pass to break cycles. The environment model is lexical with explicit global declarations. Built‑in functions and extensions are registered through a small C extension API and exposed at startup.

License

BSD 3-Clause License. See LICENSE for details.

Documentation

• docs/lx_user_manual.md — Lx user manual: the language reference
• docs/lx_functions_reference.md — functions reference
• docs/lx_database_reference.md — PDO/SQLite quick guide and examples
• docs/lx_predefined_constants.md — predefined constants reference
• docs/lx_installation.md — build, run, and test instructions
• docs/lx_adding_extensions.md — how to add your own extensions
• docs/lx_cgi.md — CGI wrapper usage (Apache/CGI setup)
• examples/ — small scripts demonstrating typical use cases
• vscode-lx/ — VS Code extension (syntax highlighting and completions)

Quick Start

cd lx
make
./lx tests/core/variables.lx

Tests

make test

See docs/lx_installation.md for more details.