Folders 0.0.1

An interpreter for the Folders esolang

Folders.py

Folders is an esoteric programming language, created by Daniel Temkin in 2015, which encodes the program entrirely into the directory structure.

All names of the folders as well as their contents are completely ignored. Instead, the commands are encoded in the nesting of folders within folders.

This is a Python implementation of Folders for all operating systems to enjoy!

Folders is was originally implemented in C#.

Usage

The implementation is just the python file, folders.py and has no dependencies.

Give the folder of the program you wish to run as an command line argument

python folders.py sample_programs/HelloWorld
# => Hello, World!

If instead you would like list the Python code to stdout, use the -l option

python folders.py -l sample_programs/Fibonacci
# => print("Hello, World!", end='', flush=True)

Language details

The language details are on the esolangs wiki, but here's the basics.

For example, take a look at the Fibonacci sample program

There root folder contains a list of command folders, (labelled Nf1.., Nf2.., but the names don't actually matter except the alphabetical ordering) the first folder (which I've labelled with an init) is the first "sub-folder", the next is the second, etc.

Commands:

Commands take the following form

Command	# of folders	Details
if	0 folders	Second sub-folder holds expression, third holds list of commands
while	1 folder	Second sub-folder holds expression, third holds list of commands
declare	2 folders	Second sub-folder holds type, third holds var name (in number of folders, ex. zero folders becomes "var_0")
let	3 folders	Second sub-folder hold variable name (in number of folders), third holds an expression

Expressions:

Expression folders take the following form:

Type	# of folders	Details
Variable	0 folders	Second sub-folder holds variable name
Add	1 folder	Second sub-folder holds the first expression to add, third holds second expression
Subtract	2 folders	Second sub-folder holds the first expression to subtract, third holds second expression
Multiply	3 folders	Second sub-folder holds the first expression to multiply, third holds second expression
Divide	4 folders	Second sub-folder holds the first expression to divide, third holds second expression
Literal Value	5 folders	Second sub-folder holds the type of the value (as described by types below, ex. two folders for a string)
Equal To	6 folders	Second and third folders hold expressions to compare
Greater Than	7 folders	Second and third folders hold expressions to compare (takes the form : second folder > third folder)

Types

And finally type folders take the following form:

Type	# of folders
int	0 folders
float	1 folder
string	2 folders
char	3 folders

Note on this implemementation

The int, float, and char types are 8-bit only. But, you can add into their variables to arbitrary length, so to get a very large number you can simply multiply it a bunch of times.

This is what the fibonacci program does.

The absolute power of folders

Behold, the mighty Truth Machine program:

A mighty meme-worthy point

All Folders programs are 0 bytes if you're on windows, and windows interprets an empty folder as 0 bytes.

The ultimate code golf!

Links

• Folders on esolang
• Folders homepage