ELENA Programming Language

ELENA is a general-purpose language with late binding. It is multi-paradigm, combining features of functional and object-oriented programming. It supports both strong and weak types, run-time conversions, boxing and unboxing primitive types, direct usage of external libraries. A rich set of tools is provided to deal with message dispatching : multi-methods, message qualifying, generic message handlers. Multiple-inheritance can be simulated using mixins and type interfaces. The built-in script engine allows incorporating custom-defined scripts into your applications. Both stand-alone applications and Virtual machine clients are supported.

Features

• Free and open-source (MIT licensed)
• Complete source code
• Unicode support (utf-8)
• GUI IDE & Debugger
• Optional types
• Multiple dispatching / multi-methods
• Returning Multiple Values
• Support of variadic methods
• Support of yieldable methods
• Closures
• Mixins
• Type interfaces / conversions
• Class / code templates
• Script Engine

Currently Supported Platforms

• Windows : x86 (32-bit) / x86-64 (64-bit)
• Linux : x86 (32-bit) / x86-64 (64-bit) / ppc64le / arm64 (a64)

Source Download and Compilation

To acquire the source code clone the git repository:

git clone https://github.com/ELENA-LANG/elena-lang.git

Windows:

The compiler code is implemented in C++ and does not require external dependencies. You just need Visual Studio 2019.

You have to add a path to BIN folder to the system environment PATH or copy elenavm.dll and elenart.dll to Windows\System32 folder.

To build the compiler and API under VS2019 / VS2022 you have to go to the root folder and type:

recompile60.bat 

Source Code Organization

Windows:

The ELENA source code is organized as follows:

bin                 binaries and shared libraries
bin\scripts         scripts used by the script engine and VM console
bin\templates       ELENA project templates
asm                 source for core routines implemented in assembly
dat\sg              language grammar file            
dat\og              language optimization rules
doc                 some documentations
elenasrc3\elc       source for the compiler
elenasrc3\elenart   source for the run-time shared library
elenasrc3\elenasm   source for the script engine
elenasrc3\elenavm   source for the virtual machine
elenasrc3\gui       source for IDE
elenasrc3\tools     source for ELENA utilities
examples60          ELENA examples
src60               source for ELENA libraries

Community

We want your contributions and suggestions! One of the easiest ways to contribute is to participate in Github discussions or on Discord.

Please take a look at our contributor page

1. Bugs, questions, suggestions?

If you've noticed a bug or have a question go ahead and make one!

Join design discussions or take part in general talks.

2. Implement "up for grab" issues

Good first issue is a good starting point for a first-time contributors.

3. Rosetta code

You may try to implement some of Rosetta code tasks which are not yet implemented

Contact Us

Reach out with any questions you may have and we'll make sure to answer them as soon as possible!

Platform	Link
💬 Instant Message Chat
📧 E-mail	elenaprolang@gmail.com
🐤 Twitter	@elena_language

Resources

• Nightly builds: https://ci.appveyor.com/project/arakov/elena-lang/build/artifacts
• ELENA Documentation https://github.com/ELENA-LANG/elena-lang/wiki/ELENA-Programming-Manual
• ELENA API 6.0 https://elena-lang.github.io/api/index.html
• Git clone URL: git://github.com/ELENA-LANG/elena-lang.git
• Tutorials: https://github.com/ELENA-LANG/tutorials
• ELENA reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/elena_lang/
• Source code: https://github.com/ELENA-LANG/elena-lang
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/elena_language
• Rosetta code: http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Category:Elena

License

The compiler and executables distributed in this package fall under MIT License, for more information read the file LICENSE.