Folders.py

Folders is an esoteric programming language, created by Daniel Temkin in 2015, which encodes the program entirely 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.

Let me say that again: THE SOURCE CODE IS THE DIRECTORY STRUCTURE. Lol.

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

Folders is (was originally) implemented in C#.

Usage

Install from pip

Simply install the Folders command line interpreter

pip install Folders

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

Folders sample_programs/HelloWorld
# => Hello, World!

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

Folders -l sample_programs/HelloWorld
# => print("Hello, World!", end='', flush=True)

Run python

The implementation is just the python file, folders.py and has no dependencies, so if you'd like you can clone the repo and run python ./folders/folders.py instead of pip installing and use it the same as in the examples above.

Language details

The language details are on the esolangs wiki, but I've put it here for reference.

For example, take a look at the Fibonacci sample program.

The root folder contains a list of command folders - in this case 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

print 4 folders Second sub-folder holds expression

input 5 folders Second sub-folder holds variable name

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 as it interprets an empty folder as 0 bytes.

The ultimate code golf!

Links