A programming language is made up of syntax and semantics. The semantics of Fennel vary only in small ways from Lua (all noted below). The syntax of Fennel comes from the lisp family of languages. Lisps have syntax which is very uniform and predictable, which makes it easier to write code that operates on code as well as structured editing.
If you know Lua and a lisp already, you'll feel right at home in Fennel. Even if not, Lua is one of the simplest programming languages in existence, so if you've programmed before you should be able to pick it up without too much trouble, especially if you've used another dynamic imperative language with closures. The Lua reference manual is a fine place to look for details, but Fennel's own Lua Primer is shorter and covers the highlights.
Use fn to make functions. If you provide an optional name, the
function will be bound to that name in local scope; otherwise it is
simply an anonymous value.
A brief note on naming: identifiers are typically lowercase separated by dashes (aka "kebab-case"). They may contain digits too, but must start with a letter or underscore. You can also use the question mark (typically for functions that return a true or false, ex.,
at-max-velocity?). Underscores (_) are often used to name a variable that we don't plan on using.
The argument list is provided in square brackets. The final value is returned.
(If you've never used a lisp before, the main thing to note is that the function or macro being called goes inside the parens, not outside.)
(fn print-and-add [a b c]
(print a)
(+ b c))Functions can take an optional docstring in the form of a string that
immediately follows the arglist. Under normal compilation, this
is removed from the emitted Lua, but in the REPL, or when compiling with
metadata enabled (fennel --metadata <tgt-files>), the docstring and
function usage can be viewed with the doc macro:
Note: Enabling metadata is only recommended for development purposes.
(fn print-sep [sep ...]
"Prints args as a string, delimited by sep"
(print (table.concat [...] sep)))
(doc print-sep) ; -> outputs:
;; (print-sep sep ...)
;; Prints args as a string, delimited by sepLike other lisps, Fennel uses semicolons for comments.
Functions defined with fn are fast; they have no runtime overhead
compared to Lua. However, they also have no arity checking. (That is,
calling a function with the wrong number of arguments does not cause
an error.) For safer code you can use lambda which ensures you will
get at least as many arguments as you define, unless you signify that
one may be omitted by beginning its name with a ?:
(lambda print-calculation [x ?y z] (print (- x (* (or ?y 1) z))))
(print-calculation 5) ; -> error: Missing argument zNote that the second argument ?y is allowed to be nil, but z is not:
(print-calculation 5 nil 3) ; -> 2Like fn, lambdas accept an optional docstring after the arglist.
Locals are introduced using let with the names and values wrapped in
a single set of square brackets:
(let [x (+ 89 5.2)
f (fn [abc] (print (* 2 abc)))]
(f x))Here x is bound to the result of adding 89 and 5.2, while f is
bound to a function that prints twice its argument. These bindings are
only valid inside the body of the let call.
You can also introduce locals with local, which is nice when they'll
be used across the whole file, but in general let is preferred because
it's clearer at a glance where the value is used:
(local tau-approx 6.28318)Locals set this way cannot be given new values, but you can introduce new locals that shadow the outer names:
(let [x 19]
;; (set x 88) <- not allowed!
(let [x 88]
(print (+ x 2))) ; -> 90
(print x)) ; -> 19If you need to change the value of a local, you can use var which
works like local except it allows set to work on it. There is no
nested let-like equivalent of var.
(var x 19)
(set x (+ x 8))
(print x) ; -> 27Of course, all our standard arithmetic operators like +, -, *, and /
work here in prefix form. Note that numbers are double-precision floats in all
Lua versions prior to 5.3, which optionally introduced integers. On 5.3 and
up, integer division uses // and bitwise operations use lshift, rshift,
bor, band, bnot and xor. Bitwise operators and integer division will
not work if the host Lua environment is older than version 5.3.
You may also use underscores to separate sections of long numbers. The underscores have no effect on the output.
(let [x (+ 1 99)
y (- x 12)
z 100_000]
(+ z (/ y 10)))Strings are essentially immutable byte arrays. UTF-8 support is
provided in the utf8 table in Lua 5.3+ or from a
3rd-party library in earlier versions. Strings are concatenated with ..:
(.. "hello" " world")In Lua (and thus in Fennel), tables are the only data structure. The main syntax for tables uses curly braces with key/value pairs in them:
{"key" value
"number" 531
"f" (fn [x] (+ x 2))}You can use . to get values out of tables:
(let [tbl (function-which-returns-a-table)
key "a certain key"]
(. tbl key))And tset to put them in:
(let [tbl {}
key1 "a long string"
key2 12]
(tset tbl key1 "the first value")
(tset tbl key2 "the second one")
tbl) ; -> {"a long string" "the first value" 12 "the second one"}Immutable tables are not native to Lua, though it's possible to construct immutable tables using metatables with some performance overhead.
Some tables are used to store data that's used sequentially; the keys in this case are just numbers starting with 1 and going up. Fennel provides alternate syntax for these tables with square brackets:
["abc" "def" "xyz"] ; equivalent to {1 "abc" 2 "def" 3 "xyz"}Lua's built-in table.insert function is meant to be used with sequential
tables; all values after the inserted value are shifted up by one index:
If you don't provide an index to table.insert it will append to the end
of the table.
The table.remove function works similarly; it takes a table and an index
(which defaults to the end of the table) and removes the value at that
index, returning it.
(local ltrs ["a" "b" "c" "d"])
(table.remove ltrs) ; Removes "d"
(table.remove ltrs 1) ; Removes "a"
(table.insert ltrs "d") ; Appends "d"
(table.insert ltrs 1 "a") ; Prepends "a"
(. ltrs 2) ; -> "b"
;; ltrs is back to its original value ["a" "b" "c" "d"]The length form returns the length of sequential tables and strings:
(let [tbl ["abc" "def" "xyz"]]
(+ (length tbl)
(length (. tbl 1)))) ; -> 6Note that the length of a table with gaps in it is undefined; it can return a number corresponding to any of the table's "boundary" positions between nil and non-nil values.
Lua's standard library is very small, and thus several functions you
might expect to be included, such map, reduce, and filter are
absent. It's recommended to pull in a 3rd-party library like Lume
or luafun for those.
Looping over table elements is done with each and an iterator like
pairs (used for general tables) or ipairs (for sequential tables):
(each [key value (pairs {"key1" 52 "key2" 99})]
(print key value))
(each [index value (ipairs ["abc" "def" "xyz"])]
(print index value))Note that whether a table is sequential or not is not an inherent
property of the table but depends on which iterator is used with it.
You can call ipairs on any table, and it will only iterate
over numeric keys starting with 1 until it hits a nil.
You can use any Lua iterator with each, but these are the most
common. Here's an example that walks through matches in a string:
(var sum 0)
(each [digits (string.gmatch "244 127 163" "%d+")]
(set sum (+ sum (tonumber digits))))The other iteration construct is for which iterates numerically from
the provided start value to the inclusive finish value:
(for [i 1 10]
(print i))You can specify an optional step value; this loop will only print odd numbers under ten:
(for [i 1 10 2]
(print i))If you need to loop but don't know how many times, you can use while:
(while (keep-looping?)
(do-something))Finally we have conditionals. The if form in Fennel can be used the
same way as in other lisp languages, but it can also be used as cond
for multiple conditions compiling into elseif branches:
(let [x (math.random 64)]
(if (= 0 (% x 2))
"even"
(= 0 (% x 9))
"multiple of nine"
"I dunno, something else"))With an odd number of arguments, the final clause is interpreted as "else".
Being a lisp, Fennel has no statements, so if returns a value as an
expression. Lua programmers will be glad to know there is no need to
construct precarious chains of and/or just to get a value!
The other conditional is when, which is used for an arbitrary number
of side-effects and has no else clause:
(when (currently-raining?)
(wear "boots")
(deploy-umbrella))Strings that don't have spaces in them can use the :shorthand syntax
instead, which is often used for table keys:
{:key value :number 531}If a table has string keys like this, you can pull values out of it easily with a dot if the keys are known up front:
(let [tbl {:x 52 :y 91}]
(+ tbl.x tbl.y)) ; -> 143You can also use this syntax with set:
(let [tbl {}]
(set tbl.one 1)
(set tbl.two 2)
tbl) ; -> {:one 1 :two 2}If a table key has the same name as the variable you're setting it to,
you can omit the key name and use : instead:
(let [one 1 two 2
tbl {: one : two}]
tbl) ; -> {:one 1 :two 2}Finally, let can destructure a table into multiple locals.
There is positional destructuring:
(let [data [1 2 3]
[fst snd thrd] data]
(print fst snd thrd)) ; -> 1 2 3And destructuring of tables via key:
(let [pos {:x 23 :y 42}
{:x x-pos :y y-pos} pos]
(print x-pos y-pos)) ; -> 23 42As above, if a table key has the same name as the variable you're
destructuring it to, you can omit the key name and use : instead:
(let [pos {:x 23 :y 42}
{: x : y} pos]
(print x y)) ; -> 23 42This can nest and mix and match:
(let [f (fn [] ["abc" "def" {:x "xyz" :y "abc"}])
[a d {:x x : y}] (f)]
(print a d)
(print x y))If the size of the table doesn't match the number of binding locals,
missing values are filled with nil and extra values are discarded.
Note that unlike many languages, nil in Lua actually represents the
absence of a value, and thus tables cannot contain nil. It is an
error to try to use nil as a key, and using nil as a value removes
whatever entry was at that key before.
Errors in Lua have two forms they can take. Functions in Lua can
return any number of values, and most functions which can fail will
indicate failure by using two return values: nil followed by a
failure message string. You can interact with this style of function
in Fennel by destructuring with parens instead of square brackets:
(let [(f msg) (io.open "file" "rb")]
;; when io.open succeeds, f will be a file, but if it fails f will be
;; nil and msg will be the failure string
(if f
(do (use-file-contents (f.read f "*all"))
(f.close f))
(print (.. "Could not open file: " msg))))You can write your own function which returns multiple values with values.
(fn use-file [filename]
(if (valid-file-name? filename)
(open-file filename)
(values nil (.. "Invalid filename: " filename))))Note: while errors are the most reason to return multiple values from a function, it can be used in other cases as well. This is the most complex thing about Lua, and a full discussion is out of scope for this tutorial, but it's covered well elsewhere.
The problem with this type of error is that it does not compose well;
the error status must be propagated all the way along the call chain
from inner to outer. To address this, you can use error. This will
terminate the whole process unless it's within a protected call,
similar to the way in other languages where throwing an exception will
stop the program unless it is within a try/catch. You can make a
protected call with pcall:
(let [(ok? val-or-msg) (pcall potentially-disastrous-call filename)]
(if ok?
(print "Got value" val-or-msg)
(print "Could not get value:" val-or-msg)))The pcall invocation there means you are running
(potentially-disastrous-call filename) in protected mode. pcall takes
an arbitrary number of arguments which are passed on to the
function. You can see that pcall returns a boolean (ok? here) to
let you know if the call succeeded or not, and a second value
(val-or-msg) which is the actual value if it succeeded or an error
message if it didn't.
Note: In real-world code it's better to use match when handling
errors; these snippets are intended as examples to specifically
illustrate how multiple values work.
The assert function takes a value and an error message; it calls
error if the value is nil and returns it otherwise. This can be
used to turn multiple-value failures into errors (kind of the inverse
of pcall which turns errors into multiple-value failures):
(let [f (assert (io.open filename))
contents (f.read f "*all")]
(f.close f)
contents)In this example because io.open returns nil and an error message
upon failure, a failure will trigger an error and halt execution.
Fennel supports variadic functions like many languages. The syntax for
taking a variable number of arguments to a function is the ... symbol, which
must be the last parameter to a function. This syntax is inherited from Lua rather
than Lisp.
The ... form is not a list or first class value, it expands to multiple values
inline. To access individual elements of the vararg, first wrap it in a table
literal ([...]) and index like a normal table, or use the select function
from Lua's core library. Often, the vararg can be passed directly to another
function such as print without needing to bind it to a single table.
(fn print-each [...]
(each [i v (ipairs [...])]
(print (.. "Argument " i " is " v))))
(print-each :a :b :c)(fn myprint [prefix ...]
(io.write prefix)
(io.write (.. (select "#" ...) " arguments given: "))
(print ...))
(myprint ":D " :d :e :f)Varargs are scoped differently than other variables as well - they are only accessible to the function in which they are created. This means that the following code wil NOT work, as the varargs in the inner function are out of scope.
(fn badcode [...]
(fn []
(print ...)))You can read more detailed coverage of some of the problems with ... and multiple values
here.
Globals are set with global. Good code doesn't use too many of
these, but they can be nice for debugging in some contexts. Note that
unlike most forms, with global there is no distinction between
creating a new global and giving an existing global a new
value.
(global add (fn [x y] (+ x y)))
(add 32 12) ; -> 44Unless you are doing ahead-of-time compilation, Fennel will track all known globals and prevent you from refering to unknown globals, which prevents a common source of bugs in Lua where typos go undetected.
If you get an error that says unknown global in strict mode it means that
you're trying compile code that uses a global which the Fennel compiler doesn't
know about. Most of the time, this is due to a coding mistake. However, in some
cases you may get this error with a legitimate global reference. If this
happens, it may be due to an inherent limitation of Fennel's strategy. You can
use _G.myglobal to refer to it in a way that works around this check.
Another possible cause for this error is a modified function environment. The solution depends on how you're using Fennel:
- Embedded Fennel can have its searcher modified to ignore certain (or all)
globals via the
allowedGlobalsparameter. See the Lua API page for instructions. - Fennel's CLI has the
--globalsparameter, which accepts a comma-separated list of globals to ignore. For example, to disable strict mode for globals x, y, and z:fennel --globals x,y,z yourfennelscript.fnl
There are a few surprises that might bite seasoned lispers. Most of these result necessarily from Fennel's insistence upon imposing zero runtime overhead over Lua.
-
The arithmetic and comparison operators are not first-class functions. They can behave in surprising ways with multiple-return-valued functions, because the number of arguments to them must be known at compile-time.
-
There is no
applyfunction; instead usetable.unpackorunpackdepending on your Lua version:(f 1 3 (table.unpack [4 9])). -
Tables are compared for identity, not based on the value of their contents, as per Baker.
-
Return values in the repl will get pretty-printed, but calling
(print tbl)will emit output liketable: 0x55a3a8749ef0. If you don't already have one, it's recommended for debugging to define a printer function which callsfennel.viewon its argument before printing it:(local fennel (require :fennel)) (global pp (fn [x] (print (fennel.view x)))) -
Lua programmers should note Fennel functions cannot do early returns.
Note that built-in functions in Lua's standard library like math.random
above can be called with no fuss and no overhead.
This includes features like coroutines, which are usually implemented using special syntax in other languages. Coroutines let you express non-blocking operations without callbacks.
Tables in Lua may seem a bit limited, but metatables allow a great deal more flexibility. All the features of metatables are accessible from Fennel code just the same as they would be from Lua.
You can use the require function to load code from other files.
(let [lume (require :lume)
tbl [52 99 412 654]
plus (fn [x y] (+ x y))]
(lume.map tbl (partial plus 2))) ; -> [54 101 414 656]Modules in Fennel and Lua are simply tables which contain functions and other values. The last value in a Fennel file will be used as the value of the whole module. Technically this can be any value, not just a table, but using a table is most common for good reason.
To require a module that's in a subdirectory, take the file name,
replace the slashes with dots, and remove the extension, then pass
that to require. For instance, a file called lib/ui/menu.lua would
be read when loading the module lib.ui.menu.
When you run your program with the fennel command, you can call
require to load Fennel or Lua modules. But in other contexts (such
as compiling to Lua and then using the lua command, or in programs
that embed Lua) it will not know about Fennel modules. You need to add
an entry to Lua's package.searchers (package.loaders in Lua 5.1)
to support it:
local fennel = require "fennel"
table.insert(package.loaders or package.searchers, fennel.searcher)
local mylib = require("mylib") -- will compile and load code in mylib.fnlOnce you add this, require will work on Fennel files just like it
does with Lua; for instance (require :mylib.parser) will look in
"mylib/parser.fnl" on Fennel's search path (stored in fennel.path
which is distinct from package.path used to find Lua modules). The
path usually includes an entry to let you load things relative to the
current directory by default.