1 Creating lightweight cross-platform Applications Viktor Pavlu 12-Dec-2002 2 3 I. REBOL LANGUAGE TUTORIAL................................................................................................................. 5 WHAT IS REBOL?.............................................................................................................................................. 6 CARL SASSENRATH ABOUT REBOL ...................................................................................................................7 VERSIONS............................................................................................................................................................ 8 RUNNING YOUR FIRST PROGRAM.............................................................................................................. 9 SETUP .................................................................................................................................................................9 GET THE USER GUIDE .........................................................................................................................................9 TRY THIS.............................................................................................................................................................9 REBOL BASICS................................................................................................................................................. 11 VALUES ............................................................................................................................................................11 Datatypes ....................................................................................................................................................11 WORDS .............................................................................................................................................................12 Types of Words............................................................................................................................................12 Unsetting a Word ........................................................................................................................................14 Protecting a Word .......................................................................................................................................15 BLOCKS ............................................................................................................................................................15 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................................................16 CONTROL STRUCTURES .............................................................................................................................. 17 WHAT IS TRUE?.................................................................................................................................................18 SIMPLE MATH ................................................................................................................................................. 19 Mathematical Words ...................................................................................................................................19 Comparison Functions ................................................................................................................................20 STRINGS............................................................................................................................................................. 20 SPECIAL CHARACTERS......................................................................................................................................20 EXERCISE PROGRAMS I ............................................................................................................................... 21 USEFUL FUNCTIONS..........................................................................................................................................21 WORKING WITH REBOL .............................................................................................................................. 22 INTERPRETER STARTUP.....................................................................................................................................22 INFORMATION PASSED TO SCRIPT .....................................................................................................................23 SERIES! .............................................................................................................................................................. 23 CREATING SERIES .............................................................................................................................................24 RETRIEVING ELEMENTS ....................................................................................................................................24 MODIFYING ELEMENTS.....................................................................................................................................25 TRAVERSING SERIES .........................................................................................................................................26 OTHER SERIES! FUNCTIONS ..............................................................................................................................27 FUNCTION! ....................................................................................................................................................... 28 INTERFACE SPECIFICATION BLOCK ...................................................................................................................28 Restricting Types.........................................................................................................................................29 Adding Documentation................................................................................................................................29 Refinements .................................................................................................................................................30 INTERACTION WITH THE OUTSIDE.....................................................................................................................31 Literal Arguments........................................................................................................................................31 Get Arguments.............................................................................................................................................31 Scope...........................................................................................................................................................32 Returning Values.........................................................................................................................................32 Function Attributes......................................................................................................................................33 ERRORS ............................................................................................................................................................33 Error Object................................................................................................................................................33 Generating Errors.......................................................................................................................................33 4 EXERCISE PROGRAMS II.............................................................................................................................. 34 TINY REFERENCE........................................................................................................................................... 35 Console I/O .................................................................................................................................................35 Files & Directories......................................................................................................................................35 Help & Debug .............................................................................................................................................35 Evaluation ...................................................................................................................................................35 Loops...........................................................................................................................................................35 Stopping evaluation.....................................................................................................................................35 Series...........................................................................................................................................................35 Strings .........................................................................................................................................................36 Misc.............................................................................................................................................................36 II. SELECTED REBOL CHAPTERS .............................................................................................................