c++qtdslembedded-language

Embedded scripting engine for DSL

I'm working on a project which needs an embedded DSL to fullfill its expected requirements.

The DSL would be user defined event based. Here goes a mockup of the desired syntax:

user-defined-event-1 {
    // event body
}

user-defined-event-2 {
    // event body
}

Probably, most similar language I know based on events is LSL (from Second Life).

So, after reading other similar questions on SO, I would like to ask for the best embeddable scripting engine (Ruby, Lua, Python, etc) on C++ (I work in Qt) which allows me to create this DSL.

In my project, I would test that the script properly uses the DSL syntax (at least one event defined) and give the user all the power of the underlying scripting engine and, if possible, Qt.

It is not a requirement for the embedded language to work with Qt. It can be isolated, but it would be nice to have some integration too.

Solution

  • There's at least a few Qt-Lua bindings out there. Lua can somewhat do the syntax you've shown above; specifically, {} indicates a table (associative array) in Lua, and if you are only passing an anonymous table to a function, you don't need parentheses:

    Lua 5.1.4  Copyright (C) 1994-2008 Lua.org, PUC-Rio
> function LengthOfTable(t) print(#t) end
> LengthOfTable ({"a","b","c"})
3
> LengthOfTable {"a","b","c"}
3

    Whether Lua is actually the best for your application, depends on your application, of course. Either way, Lua is very easy (IMO) to embed in C or C++.