bf-link

A brainf*ck linker and minifier

Installing

You can install this module for use on the command line by running:

npm install -g bf-link

Alternatively, you can use bf-link in your module by running this command:

npm install -s bf-link

Usage

bf-link -i <infile> -o <outfile> -l <library location>

Introduction

A brainf*ck file can link other files in a variety of ways.

Project modules refer to another unlinked (or linked) file that can reside anywhere on your file system, but require a relative or absolute path to each one.

Project packages refer to pre-linked singular files that reside within a particular folder that you can specify during compile time.

You'd typically use project modules for project specific files (such as a constants file). On the other hand, you'd use pre-linked project modules when you repeatedly use a file (such as a cell swapping file).

Command line usage

Firstly, you can view the help page built into the linker at any time by running:

bf-link -h

Now for an example, say you had a project structure of:

myProject/
├-- main.b
├-- const.b
├-- const1.b
├-- const2.b
└-- lib/
    └-- add.b

Where

• main.b is the main entry file (i.e. nothing else depends on it in the project)
• const.b brings together the constants, and sets them
• const1.b is a file which moves along one cell, and adds 7
• const2.b is a file which moves along one cell, and adds 5
• lib/add.b is a pre-linked and minified file which adds two cells together

So let's start by creating the const1.b and const2.b, as we need no extra knowledge of this.

const1.b

move along one cell
>
add 7 to the cell
+++++++

const2.b

move along one cell
>
add 5 to the cell
+++++

Great! Now we need to include the project modules const1.b and const2.b in the const.b file, which will set the cells that we need.

We can link a file by using the syntax {{absolute/or/relative/path/to/file.b}}. This will get replaced by the linker with the actual file contents, and then get minified after.

const.b

this will get replaced by the contents of const1
{{const1.b}}

this will get replaced by the contents of const2
{{const2.b}}

and we want to move back two cells to get back to the 0th cell
<<

So therefore, after linking this file will become:

move along one cell
>
add 7 to the cell
+++++++

move along one cell
>
add 5 to the cell
+++++

and we want to move back two cells to get back to the 0th cell
<<

Awesome! We want to then set these constants in our entry file, so let's import the const.b file into the main.b file. In this example, we don't include the file extension, as it isn't strictly necessary.

main.b

{{const}}

Now that we have that sorted, we want to import our add package, which does not depend on anything (either it doesn't import anything, or it has been pre-linked).

The syntax for this uses ((libraryname)). In our example, we can import it by using ((add)), like this:

main.b

{{const}}
((add))

Building our project

Now we've got all of the files set up, we can build our project. Our entry point is main.b, we want our linked and minified file to be saved as out.b, and our library folder is at lib/. Therefore, we can run this command in our project directory to build it:

bf-link -i main.b -o out.b -l lib

TODOs

• Talk about the node API for linking files
• Make the documentation better/clearer
• Write unit tests