Linux-like IO API

[u/Alert-Neck7679]

I'm building my own interpreted language.

I had an idea, to base my I/O API on the linux terminal commands, that many developers already know, so a user wouldn't need to learn an entire new API.

This is a basic example:

using io  

// create a directory  
mkdir("notes")  
cd("notes")  

// create files with content  
echo("Do my math.", "A note about homework.txt")  
echo("Buy milk and bread.", "shopping list.txt")  

const currentCD = pwd()  
const allFilesAndSubDirs = ls()  

debug(cat("shopping list.txt")) // prints "Buy milk and bread."

but I'm not that sure that this is a good idea, maybe some techniques are good for terminals but bad for programming, and some of the function names might be confusing (like pwd() which is "print working directory" but in my language it does not exactly PRINT anything, but just returns a string value).

What do you think?

[u/747101350e0972dccde2]

First, let's start with some term distinctions.

You have core utils (like mkdir), which are small applications installed in your system.

You also have your shell/terminal, which is an app you use to run the core utils.

Finally, you have shell built-ins (like cd). These are special commands that change things in the shell itself, they dont exist outside of it.

If your goal is to implement utils, you can do that with functions.

For shell builtins, you would need some object you can instantiate, like term = new Terminal, and term.cd("/path") term.dir()

Looking at your concrete example:

Why have an echo function that returns a string, why not just write "Buy milk and bread."?

Why does LS return all sub directories? Should that not be different command if your goal is to keep the api same?

Overall, while I dont mind the idea of having a high level api like this, you really need to have a lower level too. I reccomend you look i to how other languages design their io, you can learn a lot there

[u/Anthea_Likes → u/747101350e0972dccde2]

You also can create a 'fake shell' (I don't remember who coined the term) and implement some basic utils directly to your language but you'll still have to interact with unix/linux at some point