The InTalk Page

Jean-Jacques Girardot

What is InTalk

The InTalk system consists of a set of libraries that let you embbed a script language inside an application developped in a compiled language, such as (in fact, specifically) C.

InTalk provides :

• Primitives data-types that are directly compatible with those of C. InTalk can read and write integers (char, short and long), floats (short or double), strings, arrays and structures.
• Elaborate data-types : pairs, lists, arrays, strings, hash-tables, structures, ports, streams, weak-pairs, packages, environments, etc. These objects are automatically managed by the run-time system, including the allocation and the deallocation.
• Easy integration with C (see "integrating Intalk with C").
• High execution speed (see "comparison").

GLisp and CTalk

The InTalk system provides two main languages : GLisp and CTalk. GLisp is very close to Scheme, and in particular uses a parenthesed prefix syntax. CTalk uses a syntax close to C, although its semantics is close to Lisp. CTalk is actually a front-end to GLisp. A CTalk expression is first analysed using Lex and Yacc, and translated to GLisp. The GLisp expression is then compiled into a threaded code. Although the process looks complex, it is also very efficient, and CTalk performs better than most other interpreted script languages (see "comparison").

The same source code is used to provide GLisp and CTalk, although the resulting languages differ in some significant points (apart the syntax). For example, #f is the only false value in GLisp, while #f, (), 0 and 0.0 all count as false in CTalk (to conform to the C usage, () being considered as a kind of NULL pointer).

Documents

InTalk Foils

Ctalk

A Short Introduction to CTalk (text, english)

The CTalk reference manual (in french, 2003 version)

Examples of CTalk Programs

ctalk (Sun OS 4.1.3 executable, .gz, 259334 bytes, 2feb96)
ou ctalk (Sun OS 4.1.3 executable, .Z, 353967 bytes, 2feb96)

ctalk (Sun Solaris 2.3 executable, .Z, 510405 bytes, 15dec95)

ctalk (MacOS 7.1 executable, .sea.hqx, 296919 bytes, 2feb96)

GScheme (aka GLisp)

GScheme Ref. Manual (french, .ps.gz, 176079 bytes)

Examples of Scheme Programs

gscheme (Sun OS 4.1.3 executable, .gz, 236453 bytes, 2feb96)

gscheme (Sun OS 4.1.3 executable, .Z, 322423 bytes, 2feb96)

gscheme (MacOS 7.1 executable, .sea.hqx, 253963 bytes, 2feb96)

Comparing InTalk with other Scripting languages (text, english)

Notes about Embedding InTalk (text, english)

The source code distribution

intalk-1.0.11.tar.Z, la distribution source complète (1996)

intalk-1.0.15.tar.gz, la distribution source complète (2003)

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