Box is a text-based visual programming language inspired by Unreal Engine blueprint function graphs.
$ cat factorial.box
┌─ƒ(Factorial)───┐ ┌─[Branch]─────┐ ┌─[Set]─┐
│ ►┼─────────────────────┼► True ►┼───────────────────────┼► ►┼─────────┐ ┌─[For Loop]───────────┐ ┌───────┐
│ n ○┼──┐ ┌──┼○ False ►┼──┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌───┼○ │ └─────────┼► Loop body ►┼───────────────────┼► │
└────────────────┘ │ ┌────────┐ │ │ │ │ │ result ○┼──┘ ┌─┼○ │ │ │ ┌──────────┐ ┌────┼○ *= │
┌────┐ └────┼○ >= ○┼─┘ └──────────────┘ │ └──────────┘ │ └───────┘ ┌────┐ │ │ │ result ○┼─┘ ┌─┼○ │
│ 1 ○┼───────┼○ │ │ ┌────┐ │ │ 1 ○┼────┼○ start │ └──────────┘ │ └───────┘
└────┘ └────────┘ │ │ 1 ○┼─────┘ └────┘ │ │ │
│ └────┘ │ index ○┼─────────────────┘
│ ┌────┐ │ │
│ │ n ○┼─┐ ┌───────┐ │ │
│ └────┘ └──┼○ + │ │ │
│ ┌────┐ ┌──┼○ ○┼─────┼○ end │
│ │ 1 ○┼─┘ └───────┘ │ │
│ └────┘ │ │
│ ┌────┐ │ │
│ ┌─[Return]─┐ │ 1 ○┼────┼○ step │
┌────┐ └───┼► │ └────┘ │ Completed ►┼────┐
│ 1 ○┼─────┼○ │ └──────────────────────┘ │ ┌─[Return]─┐
└────┘ └──────────┘ ┌─────────┐ └──┼► │
│ result ○┼──────┼○ │
└─────────┘ └──────────┘
$ box factorial.box -e 5
120
$ box factorial.box -e 5
87178291200
$ box factorial.box -o factorial.py
$ cat factorial.py
def Factorial(n):
if (n >= 1):
result = 1
for index_8b6ee4f2 in range(1, (n + 1), 1):
result *= index_8b6ee4f2
return result
else:
return 1
Getting Started
Install the box interpreter with pip
pip3 install boxlang
Now open your text editor and start drawing your program! Check out existing samples here.
Anatomy of a Box
A Box has 2 types of ports: control flow ports (─►┼─) and data flow ports (─○┼─). These ports can additionally be classified as input or output ports. All ports to the left side of a box are input ports and all ports on the right side of the box are output ports.
Below, you can see a [For Loop] box which is a special type of box that the interpreter can parse - It has 1 input control flow port, 3 input data flow ports (start, end, and step), 2 output control flow ports (the loop body and completed control flows), and 1 output data flow port (the index)
Function Graphs
Box programs are function graphs. Functions have a single entry point designated by a node with the name of the Function containing a single output control flow port.
Here's a simple hello world example. This example declares a Greet() function that prints the string "Hello, World!" to the console. It calls the built-in print function.
Execute the above program with the box interpreter like so:
$ box samples/hello_world.box -e
Hello,World!
Features
-
✅ Function declarations -
✅ Defining constants and variables -
✅ Operators - Unary, binary, and assignment operators -
✅ [Set]- set the value of variables -
✅ Function calls - Call Python built-in functions -
✅ [Branch]- if-else box -
✅ [For Loop]- Python-style for loop with (start,end,step) -
✅ [While Loop]- Python-style while loop -
✅ [For Each]for iterables -
✅ [Break]and[Continue]boxes -
✅ [Return]box to return values from functions
Gotchas
- The interpreter will likely fail if you have tabs in your file - replace all tabs with the appropriate number of spaces
- There are a number of UNICODE character you'll need for this to work - Just look through the samples and COPY-PASTE (no, seriously)
Contributing
Contributions are welcome, have a look at the CONTRIBUTING.md document for more information.
License
The project is available under the MIT license.
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