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Program

rascal-0.34.0

Synopsis​

A Rascal program consists of a number of Modules.

Description​

A Rascal program consists of a number of Module, each stored in a separate file with the extension .rsc.

A Rascal program can have main() functions declared as its entry point. The execution context decides which main function will run, by selecting main Module from which the main function is chosen.

Just like any other Rascal function, main() has typed arguments and a return type, but unlike other functions, the keyword arguments of main() can be automatically translated from same name parameters passed at the command line.

There are two variants of main():

  1. Accepting just one positional argument of type list[str]: int main(list[str] arguments) { ... }
  2. Accepting keyword arguments of varying types: int main(str name="", int age=-1) { ... }

In the first case, the declaration of main(), its arguments and their effect are similar to the way main() is declared and used in languages such as C and Java. That is, any command-line arguments are passed to the program without any further processing as an array of strings.

But in the second case, any arguments to main() are automatically marshalled to their named keyword counterparts and get validated according to their declared type.

Examples​

In the following examples, it is assumed that the user has access to the rascal-shell-stable.jar file and that the files with the code describing each of the example programs below are placed in the same directory as the .jar file for simplicity.

  1. Command line arguments as a list of string values

    module main_args_as_list

    import IO;

    int main(list[str] args){
        println(args);
        return 0;
    }

    Calling this program with:

    > java -jar rascal-shell-stable.jar main_args_as_list.rsc -p1 1 -p2 2 -p3 3

    Would produce:

    ["-p1","1","-p2","2","-p3","3"]

  2. Command line arguments as named keywords of varying types.

    module main_args_as_kwd

    import IO;

    int main(int a=0, 
            str b="", 
        bool c=false, 
        list[int] d=[],
        loc e=|file:///|){

        println(a);
        println(b);
        println(c);
        println(d);
        println(e);
        return 0;
    }

    Notice here, as Rascal is a value-oriented language, with no concept of null, all keyword arguments must have a default value.

    Calling this program with:

    > java -jar rascal-shell-stable.jar main_args_as_kwd.rsc

    Would produce:

    0

    false
    []
    |file:///|

    Now, every keyword argument to main() can be set at the comand line with its "name". For example, calling the same program with:

    > java -jar rascal-shell-stable.jar main_args_as_kwd.rsc -b Blue

    Would produce:

    0
    blue
    false
    []
    |file:///|

    And calling it with:

    > java -jar rascal-shell-stable.jar main_args_as_kwd.rsc -c -d 1 2 3 4 5 -e \|file:///blue.tst\|

    Would produce:

    0

    true
    [1,2,3,4,5]
    |file:///blue.txt|

    Notice here that -c, being of type bool, was simply specified in the command line as a flag and that was enough to set its value to true. Notice also that -d has already been transformed to a list of integers as per its specification. The same applies for e, which is of type location, although the "pipe" characters might require escaping.

    Finally, if no keyword parameters are passed on the command line (i.e. no command line argument is prefixed by a - character), the arguments are assumed to be given in the command line in the same order they are defined in main(). Therefore, the following call will produce an error:

    > java -jar rascal-shell-stable.jar main_args_as_kwd.rsc SomeString

Benefits​

  • Keyword arguments offer automatic data marshalling and validation from their command line format to valid values according to a keyword's defined data type. No extra libraries are required.
  • With keyword arguments the definition of optional parameters is easy.
  • With keyword arguments the user of a main function can get basic instructions using -help or -?

Pitfalls​

  • If keyword parameters are not optional but required, the programmer must check this explicity.
  • Mandatory positional arguments require special handling.