Getting Started with Fer

This document provides instructions on how to build, install, and run the Fer programming language interpreter on your machine. Fer is just a language I made for the purpose of learning.

Prerequisites

Before building Fer, ensure the following software is installed on your system:

1. C Compiler: A compiler supporting C17 or later.

• Windows: MinGW-w64 or Microsoft Visual C++ (part of Visual Studio).
• macOS: Clang (installed via Xcode Command Line Tools: xcode-select --install).
• Linux: GCC or Clang (sudo apt install build-essential on Ubuntu/Debian).

2. CMake: Version 3.17 or higher.

• Download from cmake.org.

Building from Source

Fer is distributed as source code and must be compiled. Follow these steps for your operating system.

1. Clone the Repository

Open your terminal or command prompt and run:

git clone https://github.com/Franco030/FERProject
cd fer-language

2. Configure and Build

On macOS and Linux:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make

On Windows (PowerShell or CMD):

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build . --config Release

or

gcc *.c -o cfer.exe

Note: If using MinGW on Windows, you may need to run cmake -G "MinGW Makefiles" .. followed by mingw32-make.

3. Verify Installation

After a successful build, an executable file named cfer (or cfer.exe on Windows) will be created in the build directory. Verify it works by running:

./cfer

This should start the interactive Fer REPL. Press Ctrl+C to exit.

System-Wide Installation (Optional)

To run Fer from any directory without typing the full path to the executable, add the binary to your system's PATH.

macOS / Linux

You can create a symbolic link to the executable in a generic binary folder:

sudo ln -s /path/to/fer-language/build/cfer /usr/local/bin/fer

Now you can run fer from anywhere.

Windows

1. Search for "Edit the system environment variables" in the Start menu.
2. Click "Environment Variables".
3. Under "System variables", find the Path variable and click "Edit".
4. Click "New" and paste the full path to your fer-language\build\Debug (or Release) folder where cfer.exe is located.
5. Click OK to save. Restart your terminal.

Running Fer Programs

There are two ways to use the Fer interpreter:

1. Interactive Mode (REPL) Run the interpreter without arguments to enter interactive mode. This is useful for testing small snippets of code.

fer
> print "Hello";
Hello

2. Script Execution To run a Fer script file (conventionally ending in .fer), pass the file path as an argument:

fer path/to/script.fer

IDE Support

For the best development experience, use Visual Studio Code.

1. Open the fer-vscode folder included in this repository.
2. Press F5 to launch a new VS Code window with Fer support enabled.
3. This extension provides syntax highlighting, snippets, and integrated execution.

To configure the "Run" button in the extension:

1. Go to File > Preferences > Settings in VS Code.
2. Search for Fer.
3. Set the Executable Path to the location of your compiled cfer binary.