Bython

Python with braces. Because Python is awesome, but whitespace is awful.

Bython is a Python preprosessor which translates curly brackets into indentation.

Content of README:

• Key features
• Code example
• Installation
• Quick intro
• Structure of the repository

Key features

• "Forget" about indentaition. You should still write beautiful code, but if you mess up with tabs/spaces, or copy one piece of code to another that uses a different indentation style, it won't break.

• Uses Python for interpretation, that means that all of your existing modules, like NumPy and Matplotlib still works.

Code example

def print_message(num_of_times) {
    for i in range(num_of_times) {
        print("Bython is awesome!");
    }
}

if __name__ == "__main__" {
    print_message(10);
}

Installation

You can install Bython directly from PyPI using pip (with or without sudo -H, depending on your Python installation):

$ sudo -H pip3 install bython

If you for some reason want to install it from the git repository you can use git clone and do a local install instead:

$ git clone https://github.com/mathialo/bython.git
$ cd bython
$ sudo -H pip3 install .

The git version is sometimes a tiny bit ahead of the PyPI version, but not significantly.

To uninstall, simply run

$ sudo pip3 uninstall bython

which will undo all the changes.

Quick intro

Bython works by first translating Bython-files (suggested file ending: .by) into Python-files, and then using Python to run them. You therefore need a working installation of Python for Bython to work.

To run a Bython program, simply type

$ bython source.by arg1 arg2 ...

to run source.by with arg1, arg2, ... as command line arguments. If you want more details on how to run Bython files (flags, etc), type

$ bython -h

to print the built-in help page. You can also consult the man page by typing

$ man bython

Bython also includes a translator from Python to Bython. This is found via the py2by command:

$ py2by test.py

This will create a Bython file called test.by. A full explanation of py2by, is found by typing

$ py2by -h

or by consulting the man page:

$ man py2by

For a more in-depth intro, consult the bython introduction

Structure of the repository

At the moment, Bython is written in Python. The git repository is structured into 4 directories:

• bython contains a Python package containing the parser and other utilities used by the main script
• etc contains manual pages and other auxillary files
• scripts contains the runnable Python scripts, ie the ones run from the shell
• testcases contains a couple of sample *.by and *.py files intended for testing the implementation