BeeswaxEsolang

beeswax esoteric programming language

For instructions about how to use the program, please scroll down.

Introduction

beeswax is a stack-based/cell-based 2-dimensional self-modifiable esoteric programming language drawing inspiration from bees moving around on a honeycomb, and partly drawing inspiration from Cardinal, and the Mensa Select winner of 2006, the bug-themed abstract board game Hive. The instruction pointers (bees) move around on a 2D hexagonal grid (the honeycomb). beeswax programs can manipulate their own source code, change the program size, and can read and write files.

Honeycomb structure and source code layout

The programming language draws inspiration from bees and honeycombs, so the instruction pointers (bees) travel through the program (honeycomb) along a hexagonal grid. Every honeycomb location has 6 neighbors.

Honeycomb structure

a — b — c — d
 \ / \ / \ / \
  e — f — g — h
   \ / \ / \ / \
    i — j — k — l

Beeswax programs are stored in a rectangular format. A program using the layout of the grid above would look like this:

Program storage layout

abcd
 efgh
  ijkl

Movement directions

Bees (IPs) can move in one of 6 directions that are determined like shown below:

(β marks the IP/bee)

  2 — 1
 / \ / \
3 — β — 0
 \ / \ /
  4 — 5

The analogous neighborhood layout in a beeswax program looks like this:

21
3β0
 45

Stack layout and types of stacks

Local stacks

Every bee has a “personal” fixed size stack, carrying three UInt64 values, called local stack or lstack. Every local stack is initialized to [0,0,0]• at the start of the program. • marks the top of the stack.

Global stacks

To store bigger amounts of data there is also a global stack (gstack) available where bees can drop values onto and pick up values from.

The global stack is not limited in size and only allows basic stack operations, but no other forms of data manipulation. All arithmetic, bit manipulation and other operations have to be executed by bees on their local “personal” stacks. So, before any data on the global stack can be used for calculations etc. a bee has to pick up values from the global stack. After executing the instructions the resulting values can be put back onto the global stack.

Source code manipulations, self modification, coordinate system

Bees can also drop values anywhere in the source code, and can pick up values from anywhere (analogous to flying to a location and manipulating certain cells in the honeycomb). So, self-modifying source code can be realized.

Source code coordinate system

The origin of the coordinate system [row,column] = [1,1] is in the upper left corner. beeswax uses 1-based indexing. Bees that step outside the given honeycomb area are deleted, unless they are dropping values to cells that lie outside the current area of the honeycomb, which would let the honeycomb grow to the proper dimensions.

Examples of self modification

Positive growth of the honeycomb

*PF((F(D

The command P increments the top value of lstack.

[0,0,1]•

Then Fsets all lstack values to the top value.

[1,1,1]•

((executes two arithmetic shifts left.

[1,1,4]•

F sets all lstack values to the top value again.

[4,4,4]•

The next ( executes 4 arithmetic shifts, because the 2nd lstack value is 4 now.

[4,4,64]•

And the final D drops the lstack top value (its according character) to [row,column] = lstack[2nd,3rd].

*PF((F(D

   @

The resulting source code gets extended to a rectangle encompassing all code.

“Negative” growth of honeycomb, coordinate system reset

Because the coordinate indices of the honeycomb are 1-based, growth in negative direction (‘up’ and ‘left’ in the source code) is only possible if the 2nd and/or 3rd local stack values are set to zero. Growth in negative direction can only be realized by steps of 1. The coordinate origin of the resulting source code is reset to (row,column) = (1,1) again:

*4F(@0~0@D

results in

@
 *4F(@0~0@D

The new coordinate origin (1,1) of the honeycomb is set to the new upper left corner, where the @ was put.

Available instructions in beeswax:

Initial pointer creation

These instructions only get active at the beginning of the program

*      Create bees in all directions 0,1,2,3,4,5

\      Create bees moving along the main direction 2/5.
/      Create bees moving along the main direction 1/4.
_      Create bees moving along the main direction 0/3.

Program termination

;      Terminate program.

Movement and redirection related instructions:

>,d,b,<,p,q     Redirect bee to direction according to the diagram below:

        b   d
         \ /
      < — β — >
         / \
        p   q

a      Turn direction 1 step clockwise.
x      Turn direction 1 step counterclockwise.
s      Mirror direction along the main diagonal 2/5. Bees moving along the mirror axis are not affected.
t      Mirror direction along the main diagonal 1/4. Bees moving along the mirror axis are not affected.
u      Mirror direction along the main diagonal 0/3. Bees moving along the mirror axis are not affected.
j      Mirror direction along the half axis │ between 1/4 and 2/5.
k      Mirror direction along the half axis / between 0/3 and 1/4.
l      Mirror direction along the half axis \ between 0/3 and 2/5.
O      Mirror direction of bee coming from any direction to the opposite direction.

Table with all reflections and direction changes

inc.	a	x	s	t	u	j	k	l	O
0	1	5	4	2	0	3	1	5	3
1	2	0	3	1	5	2	0	4	2
2	3	1	2	0	4	1	5	3	1
3	4	2	1	5	3	0	4	2	0
4	5	3	0	4	2	5	3	1	5
5	0	4	5	3	1	4	2	0	4

J               Jump to lstack[———,col,row]• and keep direction of movement.

Cloning and deleting bees

m      Catch and delete bees from the 2/5 direction. Bees from other directions are not affected.
n      Catch and delete bees from the 1/4 direction. Bees from other directions are not affected.
o      Catch and delete bees from the 0/3 direction. Bees from other directions are not affected.
#      Catch bees coming from any direction.
X      Spread identical copies of bee in all directions, except in the direction the bee came from.
E      Spread identical copies of bee in 0/3 direction, except the direction the bee came from.
H      Spread identical copies of bee in 1/4 direction, except the direction the bee came from.
W      Spread identical copies of bee in 2/5 direction, except the direction the bee came from.

Table with all cloning and deletion directions

inc.	m	n	o	#	X	E	H	W
0	-	-	X	X	12345	3	1/4	2/5
1	-	X	-	X	02345	0/3	4	2/5
2	X	-	-	X	01345	0/3	1/4	5
3	-	-	X	X	01245	0	1/4	2/5
4	-	X	-	X	01235	0/3	1	2/5
5	X	-	-	X	01234	0/3	1/4	2

Important notes about bee creation

At the beginning of a beeswax program, during initialization, bees are created in a fixed order, as follows:

First, the interpreter reads in the program code and creates the according honeycomb. Then, the honeycomb is scanned for the initial bee creation instructions *, \, / and _. The honeycomb is scanned column-wise, starting with the leftmost column. The column is scanned from top to bottom, then the process is continued in the next column, until the whole honeycomb is scanned.

Each of the instructions creates a set of bees, which are pushed on a pointer/bee stack in order of creation. For each creation instruction, the standard creation order of bees always follows the pattern below, in a counterclockwise fashion, starting at the lowest number. This always leaves the bee that was created last on top of the pointer stack:

  2   1

3   β   0

  4   5

In the following examples • marks the top of the stack.

* → [... 0 1 2 3 4 5]•

\ → [... 2 5]•

/ → [... 1 4]•

_ → [... 0 3]•

During program execution, the instructions are executed according to the order of the bees on the pointer stack, from top to bottom. The last created bee is always on top of the stack and, every tick, its instruction is always executed first.

The cloning instructions X, E, H and W create bees in an analogous fashion, always leaving out the opposite direction the bee is coming from:

X: Check directions from 0 to 5, if the original bee is already moving in this direction, just let the bee move on. If the original bee is moving in the opposite direction, don’t create a clone. For every other position, clone the original bee and set its direction to the appropriate direction and push it on the pointer stack.

E: Check direction 0, then direction 3. If the original bee is moving in one of these directions, just let the bee move on and don’t create a clone. If the original bee is coming from any different direction, change the direction of the original bee to 0, push a clone of that bee on the pointer stack, moving in direction 3.

H: Check direction 1, then direction 4. If the original bee is moving in one of these directions, just let the bee move on and don’t create a clone. If the original bee is coming from any different direction, change the direction of the original bee to 1, push a clone of that bee on the pointer stack, moving in direction 4.

W: Check direction 2, then direction 5. If the original bee is moving in one of these directions, just let the bee move on and don’t create a clone. If the original bee is coming from any different direction, change the direction of the original bee to 2, push a clone of that bee on the pointer stack, moving in direction 5.

Here is a beeswax example program that prints Hello, World! to the console. This should demonstrate quite nicely how the bees that are created during initialization end up on the pointer stack. I leave it to the user to figure out the details. It shouldn’t be too hard:

W o    l   `
 ``     e  H
 `*`r`#`l`_`ld!
  ``      \/
  , o

If a bee leaves the honeycomb during program execution, it gets marked as dead. Once all instructions of the pointer stack are executed, the dead bees get deleted, and the stack gets cleaned up, leaving the general order of bees intact.

Program flow control/conditional operations

'      if lstack top value = 0 then skip next instruction, otherwise don’t skip next instruction.
"      if lstack top value > 0 then skip next instruction, otherwise don’t skip next instruction.
K      if lstack top value = 2nd value then skip next instruction, else don’t skip next instruction.
L      if lstack top value > 2nd value then skip next instruction, else don’t skip next instruction.
Q      skip next instruction.
v      Pause movement for 1 tick.
^      Pause movement for 2 ticks.

Pick up/drop values in the honeycomb (code manipulation)

[r,c] describes the [row,column] of a honeycomb cell.

Absolute addressing

D       Drop local stack top value to honeycomb[r,c]=[2nd,3rd]
        Extend honeycomb if needed to suit the requirement.
G       Get value from honeycomb[r,c]=[2nd,3rd] and put it as top value on local stack.
        If r,c outside honeycomb, then local stack top value=0

Relative addressing

Y       Drop local stack top value to cell at relative [r,c]=[2nd,3rd].
        If relative [r,c] are lower than absolute [1,1], nothing is dropped.
Z       Get value from cell at relative [a,b]=[2nd,3rd] and put it as top value on local stack.
        If relative [r,c] are lower than absolute [1,1], then local stack top value=0.

As everyone knows, bees don’t have a concept of negative numbers, but they discovered that they can use the most significant bit of an address to get around that. Thus, coordinates relative to a bee’s position are realized by the two’s complements of the coordinates. This way, half of the 64-bit address space is available for local addressing without wraparound in each direction.

The maximum positve 64-bit two’s complement address is 9223372036854775807 or 0x7fffffffffffffff in 64 bit hex. All values from 0 up to this value translate identically to the same 64 bit value. All values n in the opposite (negative) direction translate to 2^64-n For example n=-1 is addressed by 18446744073709551615, n=-9223372036854775808 is addressed by 9223372036854775808.

Always keep the UInt64 wrap-around in mind!

Local and global stack manipulations

• marks the top of the stack.

Local stack (lstack) instructions

~      Flip top and 2nd lstack values.     lstack[3,2,1]• → lstack[3,1,2]•
@      Flip top and bottom lstack values.  lstack[3,2,1]• → lstack[1,2,3]•
F      Set all lstack values to top value. lstack[3,2,1]• → lstack[1,1,1]•
z      Set all lstack values to zero.      lstack[3,2,1]• → lstack[0,0,0]•

Global stack (gstack) instructions

y      Rotate global stack down by [---,steps,depth]•
          If depth > stack height or depth = 0, set depth to global stack length.
          If steps > depth, set steps to (steps % depth).
          lstack[-,2,4]• & gstack[5,4,3,2,1]• → gstack[5,2,1,4,3]•
          lstack[-,5,4]• & gstack[5,4,3,2,1]• → gstack[5,3,2,1,4]•
          lstack[-,2,7]• & gstack[5,4,3,2,1]• → gstack[3,2,1,5,4]•
h      Rotate global stack up by [---,steps,depth]•
          If depth > stack height or depth = 0, set depth to global stack length.
          If steps > depth, set steps to (steps % depth).
          lstack[-,2,4]• & gstack[5,4,3,2,1]• → gstack[5,2,1,4,3]•
          lstack[-,5,4]• & gstack[5,4,3,2,1]• → gstack[5,1,4,3,2]•
          lstack[-,2,7]• & gstack[5,4,3,2,1]• → gstack[2,1,5,4,3]•

=      Duplicate top value of gstack.     gstack[4,3,2,1]• → gstack[4,3,2,1,1]•
?      Pop top gstack value.              gstack[4,3,2,1]• → gstack[4,3,2]•
A      Push length of gstack onto gstack. gstack[4,3,2,1]• → gstack[4,3,2,1,4]•

Local/global stack interaction

e      Flush all lstack values on the gstack. lstack[a,b,c]• → gstack[...,c,b,a]•, lstack[0,0,0]•
U      Flush top 3 gstack values on lstack. gstack[...,c,b,a]• → lstack[a,b,c]•, gstack[...]•
f      Read top value of lstack and push it on top of gstack.
g      Read top value of gstack and set it as top value of lstack.

Arithmetic operations

+      top=top+2nd     lstack[3,2,1]• → lstack[3,2,3]•
-      top=top-2nd     lstack[3,2,1]• → lstack[3,2,18446744073709551615]• (due to wrap-around)
.      top=top*2nd     lstack[3,2,1]• → lstack[3,2,2]•
:      top=top/2nd     lstack[3,2,1]• → lstack[3,2,0]• (integer division)
%      top=top%2nd     lstack[3,2,5]• → lstack[3,2,1]• (mod operator)
0...9  top=digit       lstack[3,2,1]• → lstack[3,2,7]• (for integer 7)
P      top=top+1       lstack[3,2,1]• → lstack[3,2,2]•
M      top=top-1       lstack[3,2,1]• → lstack[3,2,0]•
B      top=top^2nd     lstack[1,2,3]• → lstack[1,2,9]•

Bitwise operations

&      top=top AND 2nd lstack[3,2,1]• → lstack[3,2,0]•
|      top=top OR 2nd  lstack[3,2,1]• → lstack[3,2,3]•
$      top=top XOR 2nd lstack[3,2,1]• → lstack[3,2,3]•
!      top=NOT top     lstack[3,2,1]• → lstack[3,2,18446744073709551614]•
(      top=top<<2nd    lstack[3,2,1]• → lstack[3,2,2]• (arithmetic shift left)
)      top=top>>>2nd   lstack[3,2,1]• → lstack[3,2,0]• (logical shift right)
[      top=top<<(2nd%64)+top>>>(64-2nd%64) (roll bits left)
                       lstack[3,2,8646629796688953342]• → lstack[3,2,16274878703619526647]•
]      top=top>>>(2nd%64)1+top<<(64-2nd%64) (roll bits right)
                       lstack[3,2,8646629796688953342]• → lstack[3,2,2143642225978703743]•

Local/global I/O operations

Local stack related I/O

,      top=Int(STDIN)   Read character from STDIN and push its value on top of lstack.
T      top=(STDIN)      Read integer from STDIN and push its value on lstack.
{      STDOUT=top       Return lstack top value as integer to STDOUT.
}      STDOUT=Char(top) Return lstack top value as character(UTF8) to STDOUT.

Global stack related I/O

c      top=Int(STDIN)   Read character from STDIN and push its value on gstack.
V                       Read string from STDIN and push its content as values on gstack
                        in reverse order. The last character of the input string ends on top
                        of gstack. String content is stored as a list of Unicode code points.
                        Last character is always \n on both LF and CRLF operating systems.
i      top=(STDIN)      Read integer from STDIN and push its value on gstack.
I      STDOUT=top       Return gstack top value as integer to STDOUT.
C      STDOUT=Char(top) Return gstack top value as character(ASCII/Unicode) to STDOUT.
`      Toggle STDOUT    Return all following encountered symbols as characters directly to STDOUT.
                        The next ` switches back to normal mode again.
N      STDOUT=newline   Output newline character to STDOUT.

File related I/O

r      Read file from disk.
       Local stack setup: lstack[-,-,namebytes]•
         namebytes: number of bytes to take from gstack to determine the file name.
       The file bytes are reinterpreted as UInt64 words (big-endian).
       If the bye count of the file does not add up to full 64-bit words, then
       the end of the file is padded to the next full 64-bit word length, using
       (8-file_size%8) zero bytes.
       The UInt8 stream is reinterpreted as UInt64 words and pushed on top of gstack,
       64-bit word by 64-bit word.

w      Write file to disk.
       Local stack setup: lstack[-,filebytes,namebytes]•
         namebytes: number of bytes taken from gstack to determine the file name.
         filebytes: number of bytes (after the name bytes) taking from gstack to
         determine the file content.
       The 64 bit words are reinterpreted as groups of 8 bytes in big-endian order.
       UInt64[0x11000000000000ff] is interpreted as UInt8[0xff,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x11]•

Use of beeswax.jl

Start Julia and enter using BeeswaxEsolang in the console. The first run should take a few seconds for precompiling.

Normal program execution

Run any program with beeswax("program_name"). Without further parameters the program runs until a limit of 1e6 ticks to prevent lockup if there are errors in the code.

Available parameters

beeswax("program_name",limit) lets you determine a maximum limit of ticks the program is supposed to run.

beeswax("program_name",debug_mode,limit) lets you determine a maximum limit of ticks and a debug mode.

beeswax("program_name",debug_mode,seconds_between_steps,limit) lets you set the wait time (Float/Int in seconds) between the execution of each step.

Available debug modes

    0   No debug messages.
    1   Output of all local stack contents at every tick to STDOUT.
    2   Output of program code with locations of all bees, plus all stack contents, for every tick.
    3   Output of program code with locations of all bees, plus all stack contents, for every tick. Bees are colored red.
    4..8 The same as mode 3, but the screen is fully refreshed every tick.

Debug modes 9 and 10 are quick tools to check a short beeswax code snippet.

     Example for a two-line program directly entered via console:

     *`Hello World!`        p
     `0> rebmun deretne`;"TN<

     Take care of proper escaping:

     beeswax("*`Hello World!`        p\n`0> rebmun deretne`;\"TN<",10,100)

    9   Quick test mode that outputs everything identical to debug mode 2
    10  Quick test mode that ouputs no debug messages.

Using REPL help

All necessary information for executing beeswax programs is available via docstrings. Just type ?beeswax in the julia console to access the info.

Example beeswax programs

Cat program

 _,}

Hello world

_`Hello, World!

Infinite output of '1's

*P~P{J

Squaring an entered number, return the result to the console:

_`Enter number:`TN{` squared=`~+.{

Output numbers from 1 to 100

*3F(P~2~(~1>P{Kp
            b N<

Return n-th Fibonacci number

clear version

                        #>'#{;
_`Enter n: `TN`Fib(`{`)=`X~P~K#{;
                         #>~P~L#MM@>+@'q@{;
                                    b~@M<

compact version:

;{#'<>~P~L#MM@>+@'p@{;
  _TNX~P~K#{; d~@M<

Write to disk

Writes a file named “A” to disk, with the hex content 0x41414141414141 (ASCII: AAAAAAA)

_8F.PF8~(@~@+F8~((@~@+F8~((((@~@+fz7~1w

Quine

Self-modifying quine.

_4~++~+.@1~0@D@1J

Self-modifying reverse quine.

J~@D@~1~M.8~3@.+~++~4*