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diff --git a/bf.html.markdown b/bf.html.markdown new file mode 100644 index 00000000..9c603303 --- /dev/null +++ b/bf.html.markdown @@ -0,0 +1,81 @@ +--- +language: bf +contributors: + - ["Prajit Ramachandran", "http://prajitr.github.io/"] + - ["Mathias Bynens", "http://mathiasbynens.be/"] +--- + +Brainfuck (not capitalized except at the start of a sentence) is an extremely +minimal Turing-complete programming language with just 8 commands. + +You can try brainfuck on your browser with [brainfuck-visualizer](http://fatiherikli.github.io/brainfuck-visualizer/). + +```bf +Any character not "><+-.,[]" (excluding quotation marks) is ignored. + +Brainfuck is represented by an array with 30,000 cells initialized to zero +and a data pointer pointing at the current cell. + +There are eight commands: ++ : Increments the value at the current cell by one. +- : Decrements the value at the current cell by one. +> : Moves the data pointer to the next cell (cell on the right). +< : Moves the data pointer to the previous cell (cell on the left). +. : Prints the ASCII value at the current cell (i.e. 65 = 'A'). +, : Reads a single input character into the current cell. +[ : If the value at the current cell is zero, skips to the corresponding ] . + Otherwise, move to the next instruction. +] : If the value at the current cell is zero, move to the next instruction. + Otherwise, move backwards in the instructions to the corresponding [ . + +[ and ] form a while loop. Obviously, they must be balanced. + +Let's look at some basic brainfuck programs. + +++++++ [ > ++++++++++ < - ] > +++++ . + +This program prints out the letter 'A'. First, it increments cell #1 to 6. +Cell #1 will be used for looping. Then, it enters the loop ([) and moves +to cell #2. It increments cell #2 10 times, moves back to cell #1, and +decrements cell #1. This loop happens 6 times (it takes 6 decrements for +cell #1 to reach 0, at which point it skips to the corresponding ] and +continues on). + +At this point, we're on cell #1, which has a value of 0, while cell #2 has a +value of 60. We move on cell #2, increment 5 times, for a value of 65, and then +print cell #2's value. 65 is 'A' in ASCII, so 'A' is printed to the terminal. + + +, [ > + < - ] > . + +This program reads a character from the user input and copies the character into +cell #1. Then we start a loop. Move to cell #2, increment the value at cell #2, +move back to cell #1, and decrement the value at cell #1. This continues on +until cell #1 is 0, and cell #2 holds cell #1's old value. Because we're on +cell #1 at the end of the loop, move to cell #2, and then print out the value +in ASCII. + +Also keep in mind that the spaces are purely for readability purposes. You +could just as easily write it as: + +,[>+<-]>. + +Try and figure out what this program does: + +,>,< [ > [ >+ >+ << -] >> [- << + >>] <<< -] >> + +This program takes two numbers for input, and multiplies them. + +The gist is it first reads in two inputs. Then it starts the outer loop, +conditioned on cell #1. Then it moves to cell #2, and starts the inner +loop conditioned on cell #2, incrementing cell #3. However, there comes a +problem: At the end of the inner loop, cell #2 is zero. In that case, +inner loop won't work anymore since next time. To solve this problem, +we also increment cell #4, and then recopy cell #4 into cell #2. +Then cell #3 is the result. +``` + +And that's brainfuck. Not that hard, eh? For fun, you can write your own +brainfuck programs, or you can write a brainfuck interpreter in another +language. The interpreter is fairly simple to implement, but if you're a +masochist, try writing a brainfuck interpreter… in brainfuck. |