Write C as s-expressions.

Question

I want to write C in s-expressions and use compile-time macros. Does anybody know of anything that does this? It should translate the s-expressions into standard C.

Answer 1

• http://voodoo-slide.blogspot.com/2010/01/amplifying-c.html
• http://www.unmutual.info/software/scexp/

Related:

• http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1071222
• http://www.thinlisp.org/whitepaper.html
• http://www.bitc-lang.org/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PreScheme
• http://neontology.com/posts/2007/08/11/whats-nu

Answer 2

How do you mean? Something along the lines of:

(c-expression 
  (int main ((int argc) ((array (pointer char)) argv)
    (block
      (printf "%d arguments\n" argc)
      (if (argc >= 1)
        (printf "The first arg is %s\n" (ref argv 1)))
      (return 0))))
=>
"int main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
  printf("%d arguments\n", argc);
  if (argc >= 1)
    printf(The first arg is %s\n", argv[1]);
  return 0;
}

If so, yes, it's definitely doable. However, it's not entirely trivial.

Answer 3

Perhaps you want something like ECL, which compiles Common Lisp to C.