Parenthesis Hell
Parenthesis Hell is a Lisp-like language in which the only data types are the cons pair and nil. As a Lisp-like language, code is data, so the code consists only of nested matched pairs of open and close parentheses. Characters other than open or close parentheses are ignored.
Description
A Parenthesis Hell program is a single expression with the input as the argument. The output is the result of evaluating the expression.
An expression is either nil, written as (), or a cons pair, with the car specifying the function, and the cdr specifying its argument. () evaluates to the argument. A cons pair is evaluated by applying the function named by the car to the cdr.
Predefined functions
The root scope defines 7 functions.
- (): quote - evaluates to its unevaluated argument
- (()): letrec - creates a new scope with bindings from the list in the car of its argument and evaluates to the cdr of its argument in the new scope
- ((())): car - evaluates to the car of its argument, or nil if its argument is nil
- (()()): cdr - evaluates to the cdr of its argument, or nil if its argument is nil
- ((())()): cons - evaluates to the cons of the car of its argument and the cdr of its argument, or nil if its argument is nil
- (()()()): if - if the car of its argument is not nil, evaluates to the cadr of its argument, otherwise it evaluates to the cddr of its argument, or nil if its argument is nil or if the cdr of its argument is nil
- (((()))): eval - obligatory in code-is-data languages
A nil element in a letrec binding list is ignored.
The car of an element in a letrec binding list is the name of a function being defined. Within the letrec scope, it shadows all definitions of the same name in any enclosing scope, including the root scope. The cdr of the binding list element is the body of the function, which, when called, is evaluated in the letrec scope, and () evaluates to the argument it was called with.
Applying an undefined function is illegal.
Values
ASCII Strings are encoded by converting them to binary, where each character uses 8 bits. The bits 0 and 1 are encoded as () and (, respectively, where the ( for 1 is closed later to ensure the parentheses match. For example, a program to print the ASCII character 'I', which is 01001001 in binary, is (()()(()()(()()(())))).
Examples
Hello world (ASCII):
(()()(()()(()()()()((()()(()(()((()((()()()((()((()()()((()((((()()(()( )()()()()(((()(((()((()((((()(((()()(()()((()((()()()((()()(()()()()(() ()()()(()()()()(()(())))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
cat:
()
quine:
((())(((())()((())())(()())((())())(((())())(((())())(()())((())())(())(()))() )(())))((())())(()())((())())(((())())(((())())(()())((())())(())(()))())(()))