Alk Visual Studio Code Extension

Extension for the Alk programming language. Right now, the following features are present:

• Recognition of files with the .alk extension
• The option to directly run files with the .alk extension, with different options
• The output is interpreted, any errors created will be shown directly on the code
• Syntax highlighting
• Auto-update and first install of the files needed to run Alk

How to use:

• In order to run an Alk file, you can press the run button in the top-right menu and choose the desired option (exhaustive or not).
  
  
  
  
• You can also run an Alk file by right clicking on the active editor and using the Alk submenu.
  
  
  
  
• In order to stop a running program you can press the stop button in the top-right menu.
  
  
  
  
• Or right click on the active editor and use the option from the Alk submenu.
  
  
  
  
• The settings of Alk can be accessed using the Alk Settings options from the Alk submenu when right clicking.

• Settings:

  • The Show Command enables or disables showing the command used to run the algorithm in the output.
  • The Metadata option (equivalent of using -m as argument in the command line) enables or disables showing metadata in the output.
  • The Precision option (equivalent of using -p "x", where "x" is a number, as arguments in the command line) sets the precision that will be used when running the algorithm.
  • The Input options (equivalent of using -i "x", where "x" is either the path of the input file or a string containing variable-value assignments) allow the use as input of either of file or a configuration directly written in the interface. The Input Active option must be checked if the algorithm to be executed has an input state.
    
    To create input directly from the interface first the text option must be choosen in Input Mode, and then key-value pairs can be added, removed and modified in the Input Text setting.
    
    
    To use a file as input first the file option must be choosen in Input Mode, and then the name of the file must be entered in the Input Path setting.
    

Useful links

Read the reference manual to review the Alk syntax. Also consider the Alk-by example wiki to understand how Alk behaves in real-scenarios.

If you want to also run the Alk interpreter from the command line, it is strongly recommended to include the folder Linux_Mac or Windows in the PATH environment variable. This allows you to call the the interpreter without mentioning the path to its location.

Set Alk in PATH system variable

Note that in the following instructions, [ALK-PATH] is a placeholder for the actual place where Alk is.

In order to find the [ALK-PATH] needed below, you can run an Alk program through the extension with the Show Command option enabled from the setting, and you will see the full path to the alki.sh of alki.bat script.

• Linux/Mac OS:

  export PATH=[ALK-PATH]/bin:$PATH
  

  Note that this will set the PATH only for the current shell. Opening another shell will not have Alk set in PATH. For the change to be persistent, use:

  echo 'PATH=[ALK-PATH]/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.bashrc
  

  To test if it works, the following command can be ran:

  alki.sh -h
  

• Windows

  • Search for Edit the system environment variables
  • Open the System Properties window and press Environment variables...
  • Select in the bottom grid (System variables) the Path variable and press Edit...
  • Press New...
  • For Variable name put Alk, and for Variable value put [ALK-PATH]

  To test if it works, the following command can be ran:

  alki -h
  

How to use the Alk extension

Creating and running a simple program

• First, you must create a file with the .alk extension. You can do that directly from Visual Studio Code, or from Windows Explorer.
  
  
  
  
  
• After creating the file, you can start typing the code for your program in it. For this example we will use a simple "Hello world" printing program.
  
  
  
  
  
• Now you will need to save the file. To to this you can either press Ctrl + S or manually go to File -> Save in Visual Studio Code. Any modifications made to the file will not be taken into consideration when running the program if you don't save!
  
  
  
  
  
• This program doesn't need any input, so you will need to make sure that all kinds of input are disabled in the settings. You can open the settings by right-clicking anywhere in the editor and clicking Alk -> Alk Settings.
  
  
  
  
  
• The settings for a program without input should look like this:
  
  
  
  
  
• Now that you made sure that the settings are ok, the settings tab may now be closed and you can now run the program by right-clicking anywhere in the editor and clicking Alk -> Run Alk, or by clicking the run button in the top-right corner of Visual Studio Code.
  
  
  
  
  

Running a program that takes input

• The first steps are similar to the previous example, but now a different program will be used. This program will print the sum of a and b, which will be provided from the input source. After configuring the input in the settings, running the program is the same as in the last example.
  
  
  
  
  
• Now you will need to go to settigs, and enable Initial State
  
  
  
  
  
• Using the input from the settings
  You will need to select Text for Initial State Mode, and you can start adding assignments in the Initial State Mode: As Text setting.
  
  
  
  
  To add a new assignment, you need to click on Add Item, and when you are done you need to click on Ok or press Enter.
  
  
  
  
  
• Using a file as input
  First, you will need to create an input file. For this example a file named input.in will be used. To create it, follow the same steps for creating a file from the first example. Inside the file, you can write all the assignments you need. After writing them, don't forget to save the file!
  
  
  
  
  Now you will need to select File for Initial State Mode, and input the name of the file in the File Path option.