ChaiScript is a header-only C++ embedded scripting language loosely based on ECMA script. It is designed for ease of use and tight integration with C++.

Usage

The original ChaiScript repository has been split into multiple build2 packages to allow for greater flexibility. The libchaiscript package is used to get access to the ChaiScript header-only library. The package chaiscript makes ChaiScript's own interpreter chai available to be used. chaiscript-stdlib exports the compiled and dynamically loadable standard library module for the basic ChaiScript engine. Typically, you will not need to use this one.

Notes:

Current Version: 6.1.0

Changes since 6.0.0

• Add namespacing support #290 @stephenberry
• Add utf parsing support
• cheatsheet.md updates
• add_class utility support for scoped enums #306 @StanEpp
• Parser optimizations #300 @niXman
• Various JSON fixes #377 #400 #409 #371 @totalgee @dinghram @arcoRocks
• Various cleanups, bugfixes and warning fixes and minor performance improvements
• Support for C++17 compilers!
• Support for UTF8 BOM #439 @AlekMosingiewicz @MarioLiebisch

Changes since 5.8.6

6.0.0 is a massive rework compared to 5.x. It now requires a C++14 enabled compiler

Compiler Requirements

• MSVC 2015 or greater
• g++ 4.9 or greater
• clang 3.6 or greater

Breaking Changes

• Instantiating a ChaiScript object now, by default, builds the stdlib in
  • This was done to address the most common support issues of loading stdlib dynamically at runtime
  • If you want the old behavior, use include/chaiscript/chaiscript_basic.hpp
• Headers have been reorganized to fully separate stdlib/parser/engine from each other (some faster builds)
• Bootstrap functions no longer return a reference to the module added to (compile time savings)
• It's now no longer possible modify AST_Nodes (compile time, runtime efficiency)
• Function annotations no longer exist (simplifies code, reduces compile time, compile size)

New Features Added

• Modular optimization system; this can be accessed via the ChaiScript_Basic interface
• Execution tracing capability; also accessed via ChaiScript_Basic interface
• range-based for loops for( id : container ) { } (much better performance than other loop types)
• If-init expressions (ala C++17)
• Support for passing r-value references to functions
• Support for containing unique_ptr
• Add helpers for exposing enum classes to ChaiScript
• Allow typed ChaiScript defined functions to perform conversions on call #303

Improvements

• Compile time improvements
• Compile size improvements
• Significant runtime improvements (see "Modular optimization system")
• Significant parser improvements, both with parse-time and parser initialization time (Thanks @niXman)
• Fix type conversion to bool in conditionals

Improvements Still Need To Be Made

• File location tracking has been rewritten; this currently means error location reporting is not as good as it was
• Tracing capability needs to be tested and vetted

Changes since 5.8.5

• Optimize away return statements in lambdas also
• Allow conversions to bool in conditionals
• Don't allow class statements inside of scopes
• Properly error when a dynamic object non-function member is called

Changes since 5.8.4

• Fix order of operations for prefix operators
• Make sure atomics are initialized properly
• Remove parsing of unused prefix & operator

Changes since 5.8.3

• Fix case with some numeric conversions mixed with numerics that do not need conversion

Changes since 5.8.2

• Add support for reference of pointer return types

Changes since 5.8.1

• Allow casting to non-const & std::shared_ptr

Changes since 5.8.0

• Fix parsing of floats to be locale independent #250
• Various warning fixes on various platforms

Changes since 5.7.1

• Make all parser iterator operations range checked
• Parse in-string eval statements once, not once for each execution
• Fix parsing of operators (ie 1<-1 now parses)
• Fix variable scoping for functors
• Exception reduction
• Various object lifetime fixes
• Add JSON support for load / save #207
• Numeric overload resolution fixes #209
• Fix long long #208
• Add octal escapes in strings #211
• Fixed sizing of binary literals #213
• Added support for != with bool values #217
• Various value assignment vector fixes
• Fixed broken hex escape sequences from @ChristianKaeser
• Multiply defined symbols fixes #232 @RaptorFactor
• Add add_class helper #233 @vrennert
• Cheatsheet fixes #235 @mlamby
• Fix parsing of strings inside of in-string eval statements
• Allow lower-case global keyword
• Enable thread-local on MSVC (should be significant performance boost)

Changes since 5.7.0

• Build time reduction
• Build size reduction
• Performance increases
• Fixed ~20 crash-bugs found with fuzzy testing #194
  • Let unhandled exceptions propogate to user
  • Report eval_error when break statement is not in loop
  • Fix handling of 0 length scripts closes #193
  • Don't crash on arity mismatch - Specifically affects the case where no overloads exist for a given function
  • Fix error printing for bind calls
  • Handle unexpected continue statement
  • Check arity during bind
  • Don't allow arith conversion on variadic function
  • Correct bind parameter match count
  • Add in expected Boxed_Value exception cases
  • Check access to AST, don't allow ; in func def
  • Don't attempt arithmetic unary & call
  • Don't crash on 0 param call to bind
  • Catch errors during member function dispatch
  • Properly handle type of const bool &
• Automatic deduction of lambda type signatures
• Work with non-polymorphic parent/child conversions
• Move to codecov for coverage reporting
• Add .at method for Map objects
• Various corrections for support of move-only objects

Changes since 5.6.0

• Significant code cleanups and reduction
• Smaller builds
• Faster compiles
• Less runtime memory usage
• ~2x faster runtimes
• biicode support
• method_missing feature added #164 @arBmind
• Generic objects with dynamic properties support
• Add ability to call functions contained in properties
• Add lambda captures
• Create cheatsheet.md for all-in-one reference of features
• Fix support for libc++
• Eliminate clone of return value stored locally
• Eliminate 'return' statements when last line of function
• Reduce number of runtime exceptions occuring
• Reduce copies / moves of return values.
• make use statement return value of last statement in file
• Add ability to access fixed array sizes
• Add support for scientific notation floating point literals #174 @totalgee