basic-to-mindustry/GUIDE.md

MinBasic guide

Keywords and case sensitivity

Most things in MinBasic are described with keywords. These keywords are not case-sensitive, meaning that if x > 0 then is equivalent to IF x > 0 THEN.

User-defined things, like functions and variables, are case-sensitive. So myVariable, MYVARIABLE and myvariable all refer to different things.

We recommend to prefer uppercase for keywords and lowercase for variable names.

Comments

Comments are prefixed with the REM keyword.

Variables and assignments

To assign a value to a variable, use the variable = value syntax, where value can be any expression. Optionally, you can prefix the assignment with the LET keyword.

To use a variable, simply put its name in an expression.

Note: multi-line expressions are not yet supported.

Variables don't need to be declared, and values can be assigned to them at any point in time. Using a variable before it was assigned any value will yield null instead.

Examples

REM Sets the variable "answer" to 42:
answer = 42

REM Also sets the variable "answer" to 42:
LET answer = 42

REM Sets the variable "x" to 21:
x = answer / 2

REM Increments "x" by one:
x = x + 1

Expressions

The following binary operators are supported:

• Addition: a + b
• Subtraction: a - b
• Multiplication: a * b
• Division: a / b
• Modulo: a % b
• Less than: a < b
• Greater than: a > b
• Less than or equal: a <= b
• Greater than or equal: a >= b
• Equal: a == b
• Not equal: a != b

Multiplication and division have a greater precedence than addition and subtraction. Comparisons have the lowest precedence. You can wrap sub-expressions in parentheses to override precedence.

Some additional operators are only available by calling builtin functions, which are case-insensitive:

• Maximum: MAX(a, b)
• Minimum: MIN(a, b)
• Square root: SQRT(a)
• Floor: FLOOR(a)
• Ceil: CEIL(a)
• Round: ROUND(a)
• Rand: RAND(a), generates a random number between 0 and a

Examples

REM Picks a random integer between 0 and 63
n = FLOOR(RAND(64))

REM Sets x to the remainder of n by 8, and y by the integer part of n / 8
x = n % 8
y = FLOOR(n / 8)

REM Sets dist to the euclidean distance between (0, 0) and (x, y)
dist = SQRT(x * x + y * y)

Jumps and labels

Jumping allows you to interrupt the regular flow of instruction to go to another point in the program.

To perform a jump, you will first need to define where you want to jump to. You have two options: prefixing a line with a number, or writing a named label.

Then, use the GOTO statement to jump to either a line number, or a label.

Using line numbers

REM The following lines have been numbered. The numbers chosen are arbitrary, but they are commonly increasing multiples of 10,
REM which allows you to squeeze in debugging statements when needed.
10 PRINT "Hello, world"
20 PRINT "This is line 20"

REM We then jump back to line 20, which will cause an infinite loop printing "This is line 20"
30 GOTO 20

Using labels

REM We define here the "start" label
start:
PRINT "Hello, world"

REM We then jump to the "start" label, causing an infinite loop printing "Hello, world"
GOTO start

Conditions

The IF keyword allows you to execute different parts of the code depending on whether a condition is met or not. The syntax for IF is as follows:

IF condition THEN
    REM Code to be executed if "condition" is true
ELSE
    REM Code to be executed if "condition" is false
END IF

If you do not need to execute code when the condition is false, then you can omit the ELSE keyword.

Example

REM This is a condition without an ELSE block:
IF age < 0 THEN
    PRINT "It seems like you weren't born yet..."
END IF

IF age < 18 THEN
    PRINT "You are underaged"
ELSE
    REM We can nest conditions within other conditions:
    IF age == 18 THEN
        PRINT "You just turned 18!"
    ELSE
        PRINT "You're over 18"
    END IF
END IF

Loops

MinBasic offers multiple ways to execute a block of code multiple times, on top of manually jumping to an earlier point in the code:

FOR loops

FOR loops allow you to run a piece of code for a fixed amount of iterations, incrementing a variable when doing so. The syntax is as follows:

REM Prints the numbers from 1 to 10, with 10 included
FOR x = 1 TO 10
    PRINT x
NEXT x

The FOR keyword expects a variable name (here x), an initial value (here 1), a maximal value (here 10), and optionally an increment, which defaults to 1. To specify the increment, append STEP n to the FOR instruction: FOR x = 1 TO 10 STEP 2.

The loop body is then executed, until the NEXT statement is reached, telling the loop to jump to the beginning, increment the variable, compare it and possibly execute the loop body.

If the initial value is bigger than the maximal value, then the loop body will not be executed.

WHILE loops

WHILE loops allow you to execute a piece of code any amount of time, until a condition turns false. The syntax is as follows:

REM Divides x until it is an odd number
WHILE x % 2 == 0
    x = x / 2
WEND

If the condition (here x % 2 == 0) yields false on the first iteration, then the loop body will not be executed.

WEND may be replaced with END WHILE, similar to VisualBasic.

DO WHILE loops

Much like WHILE loops, DO WHILE loops execute a piece of code until a condition turns false. The difference, however, is that the loop body will be executed at least once:

REM Will repeatedly set x to 3*x+1, until it becomes an even number
DO WHILE x % 2 == 1
    x = 3*x + 1
LOOP

Subroutines

Subroutines allow you to jump to a point in your code, and return back to where you entered the subroutine. This allows you to re-use a piece of code, without duplicating it.

color = "white"
amount = 0
GOSUB display

WHILE true
    READ(amount, cell1, 0)
    IF amount > 0 THEN
        color = "green"
        GOSUB display
    ELSE
        color = "red"
        GOSUB display
    END IF
WEND

display:
    PRINT "Amount: [", color, "]", amount, "[white]"
    PRINT_FLUSH(message1)
    RETURN

As of now, subroutines save their return point in a numeric variable, using modulus arithmetic to pack many returns in one. This allows for 17 nested subroutine calls, before the "return stack" overflows. In most program however, this limitation shouldn't cause issues, unless if you forgot a RETURN or cause an infinite amount of recursive GOSUBs.

The "return stack" is cleared at the beginning of the generated program.

Interacting with the world

mlog provides several ways for processors to interact with the in-game world, which are reflected in MinBasic using functions: