WHILE Language Support

A Visual Studio Code extension to add support for the extended version of the WHILE programming language as described in Limits of Computation: From a Programming Perspective - Bernhard Reus. It applies to files with the .while extension.

It includes HWhile integration and compatibility with whilers syntax.

This extension was designed as an alternative to the while-syntax VS Code extension.

Features

Syntax Highlighting

Adds a grammar for syntax highlighting of all extended while features with VS Code's built-in themes.

HWhile Support

Adds integrations for running HWhile from within VSCode. A path to HWhile needs to be specified in the extension settings for it to work.

Debugger

Includes a debug adaptor for HWhile's interactive mode. This allows for stepping, breakpoints, and variable state inspection. The program input, printmode (output type), file to use, and hwhile interpreter to use can be configured in launch.json.

Error Highlighting

Adds error highlighting for WHILE programs using HWhile's unparser mode. This can be disabled in the extension settings.

Tasks

Includes a task for running programs through HWhile more conveniently. It is accessible from the Terminal > Run Task... dialog, the while-language-support.runOpenFileHWhile command, or the play button in the top right of WHILE files. The program input, printmode (output type), file to use, and hwhile interpreter to use can be configured in tasks.json.

Auto-Completions

Adds completions for WHILE language features, detected variables and macros.

Code Snippets

Includes several common code snippets including:

• Program definition
• while loops
• if and if-else statements
• switch statements
• macro calls

Icon

A custom icon for more easily identifying .while files.

Language Configuration

A VS Code language configuration for bracket auto-closing, auto-indentation, comment toggling and folding.

Requirements

Some features of this extension require HWhile. To set it up please download HWhile and set the path to it in the extension settings. If HWhile is located in your system's PATH then set HWhile as the path in settings.

Extension Settings

This extension includes the following settings:

• hwhile.executablePath: The path to where the HWhile interpreter is located.
• hwhile.printmode: What printmode to use for HWhile if none is provided in launch.json or tasks.json.
• hwhile.promptIfMissing: Whether to prompt you to add a path to the HWhile interpreter on startup.
• hwhile.validation: Whether to use HWhile's unparser mode for validation.
• while.maxParseSize: The maximum size for a file to be parsed for completions.

Release Notes

1.0.0

Initial release of WHILE Language Support.