Zoem

two-stage processing: macro evaluation and character filtering

simplicity in design

inside out evaluation if needed

arithmetic environment

data storage environment (multi-dimensional hashes)

iteration/list construct (apply macro)

exception framework integrated with error framework, applicable to arbiratrily deeply nested expressions, enabling e.g.
\catch{towel}{\while{1}{..deep-stuff..\throw{towel}..}} idiom.

interactive mode fully recovering from errors

interactive mode can be started from the command line, from within a file, or triggered when an error occurs during processing.

easy and comprehensive IO, control operators, dictionary stacks, system commands, comprehensive tracing

line-based text formatting capabilities, including positional alignment (left, centered, right), substring alignment, background padding, and virtual length specification (byte/glyph mismatch compensation).

regexp environment

fast

autotooled (courtesy Joost van Baal), should build on all Unix platforms

05 Sep 2008
The 08-248 release fixes a very old (and so far unnoticed) bug that manifested itself only on certain platforms. It quite likely only surfaces now because zoem is being used on more platforms, and because of the arrival of 64-bit platforms that often implement C's variadic argument lists in a way that exposes the bug.

25 Jul 2007
The 07-205 release contains new zoem examples that are solutions to the N-queens problem, showing the extent to which zoem allows regular programming. While zoem is not the most suitable language for solving this type of problem, the solution as written in zoem is not overly contrived. It uses the powerful mechanism of zoem's exception mechanism, which enables conditional transferal of control by rewinding the execution stack. Dictionary stacks (a concept separate from the execution stack) are used to separate namespaces for recursive invocations of the same macro. The solution also features the zoem iteration primitive, apply, and the use of the bottom user dictionary as a global namespace.

Syntax was introduced to directly access the bottom user dictionary, which can thus unambiguously act as a global namespace.

22 Mar 2006
With 06-080 user macros are allowed to shadow (i.e. override) primitives. Syntax is provided to access primitives even if they are shadowed and thus inaccessible with regular syntax. This greatly aids in avoiding name clashes between modules and documents (by using the special syntax in modules), and it means that new primitives can be introduced in zoem without breaking older documents (as these documents are now allowed to shadow primitives).

The switch#2 primitive can group branches, whilst#2 flushes output immediately rather than building up the result the way while#2 does, and the session macro \__line__ should report the correct line number also in the presence of escaped newlines.

15 Feb 2006
In 06-046 many primitives were recoded in modules (counters and references).

24 Nov 2005
It is possible since 05-328 to register macros to be processed after all regular processing has finished. This can be used by modules to do consistency checks and optionally issue warnings or summary statistics (for example, the number of undefined references that were found).

The Zoem User Manual (html only). The definition of the zoem language.

The zoem interpreter manual - (PostScript).

enter zoem in the Unicode age. Read more further below.

fix the inspect macro interface and semantics (regular expression functionality).

more accessible syntax for nested anonymous or regular macros to facilitate staged processing (pipes).

customizable escape character (requires demand first)

more power in the filtering language (requires demand first)

separate macro packages from zoem package

man and FAQ macros depend on ascii character encoding (in specifying filter rules)

too large doc manual (pending on writing chapter mode macros).

printf, substr, length, split, pack macros (requires demand first)

doc package: could be made much more modular, more hooks for user.