We are currently working on new rules for what content should and shouldn't be allowed on this website, and are looking for feedback! See Esolang:2026 topicality proposal to view and give feedback on the current draft.
Standard single-character instructions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
- This article is not detailed enough and needs to be expanded. Please help us by adding some more information.
- This page should be moved to a page with a better name
- You are not obligated to incorporate these into your language, this is just a list of the common characters.
Many different paradigms, particularly in esolangs, have a system of "standard meanings" for single-character instructions that remain the same between entirely different languages. This document attempts to identify these. Some of them are made up, as they do not already exist.
Stack-Oriented
Stack-oriented programming languages generally execute instruction-by-instruction in order. So to discard the second item on the stack and replace it with double the top of the stack, one could do something like \$::+\
| Character | Meaning |
|---|---|
:
|
Duplicate the top of the stack |
$
|
Pop a value and discard it |
\
|
Swap the top two values on the stack |
| @ | Where @ is a binary operation, pop a, pop b, push b@a |
String-Oriented
- No known standard yet, will go create a language for it