The Gom Programming Language

Gom is a statically typed, multi-paradigm programming language based on a subset of the ECMAScript (and Rust) syntax but providing type-safety and concise syntax. It can be interpreted or compiled to C code or LLVM IR. It takes inspiration from AssemblyScript and makes it more approachable to learn compiler construction.

Here’s a typical hello world program in Gom:

import io;

fn main() {
	io.log("Hello, world!");
}

The main function is the entry point to the program, similar to other statically-typed languages. log is the standard library function to print content to the console.

Simple arithmetic and function declaration looks like this:

import io;

fn add(a: int, b: int): int {
	return a + b;
}

fn main() {
	io.log("Sum:", add(1, 2)); // Prints "Sum: 3"
}

Defining complex data structures is possible via the struct notation (like struct in C/Rust/Go). let is the variable declaration keyword, it infers type from the expression on the right hand side of =.

import io;

type ArrInt = int[10]; // int | int[10] | struct {} | Temp[10]

type Temperature = struct {
	high: int,
	low: int,
	avg: int
};

fn main() {
	let a = 1; // type inferred as int
	io.log("a:", a);

	let temperature = Temperature {
		high: 32,
		low: 26,
		avg: 29
	};

	io.log("Average temperature:", temperature.avg);
}

Apart from the built-in types, custom types can be created using the type keyword.

type Count = int;
type Name = str;

Development Status

Stage	Status
Base grammar definition	✅ Done
Lexical Analysis	✅ Done
Syntactic Analysis (parsing)	✅ Done
Semantic Analysis & preliminary type system	✅ Done
C Code Generation	⚙️ In progress
Complex data structures	⏳ Not started

Trying out Gom

The src/index.ts file is the entry point for the Gom compiler. To execute the compiler, clone and set up the repository locally:

npm install

To compile a Gom program, run:

npm run compile <path-to-gom-file> <target>
# e.g.
npm run compile test_2.gom llvm
# OR target C
npm run compile test_2.gom c

Updates

https://github.com/gom-lang/gom/commits/main/