Xblite

XBLite Summary

Paradigm	Procedural
Appeared in	2001
Designed by	David Szafranski
Developer	David Szafranski
Stable release	2.4.0 (April 15, 2008)
Typing discipline	Static
Influenced by	XBasic, QuickBASIC
OS	Microsoft Windows
License	GNU GPL, Standard libraries licensed under the GNU LGPL
Website	http://www.xblite.com

XBLite is a free Open Source BASIC programming language compiler and development system. It was started in 2001 by David Szafranski in order to provide a Windows exclusive version of the XBasic dialect. XBLite is released under the GNU GPL licensing scheme, Standard libraries are released under the GNU LGPL licensing scheme.

The XBLite syntax is very similar to that of XBasic and somewhat similar to Microsoft's QuickBASIC in that it is a procedural language capable of subs and functions. XBLite also has 64 bit integer data type, User Defined Types and the ability to have multiple modules in order to create GUI applications or games.

XBLite History

XBLite is a project that was started back in 2001. The main idea was to create a language that was based on the XBasic project that was to be exclusively a Microsoft Windows only programming language and environment. The first official release (version 1.0.0) was announced on October 2002, and subsequent versions were spread out amongst the last 6 years of development. Each release boasted both bug fixes and new features (to either the language itself and/or the different tools that are available with the XBLite project).

Today, version 2.4.0 is the current release of the compiler and version 1.30 of XSEd (The code editor). One of the latest projects is a visual GUI designer called viXen.

XBLite Development Specific Events

• A project called xpeeper is currently being developed by the XBLite team. This aims to give Peephole optimization technology to the XBLite project. The project has been distributed with XBLite since XBLite version 2.3.0. As well, XBLite is itself written in XBLite, making it a self hosting compiler (it can compile itself). Since version 2.1.0, XBLite incorporates the M4 preprocessor tool.

• XSEd, the code editor available with XBLite was developed in XBLite. It is based on the Scintilla project, a widely used editing component. XSEd is a full featured editor that allows to work with XBLite source code modules and allows to compile the code right from the editor.

• Open source project, viXen was originally created by John "prujohn" Evans, who released version 0.50a on July 22nd 2006. It is a WYSIWYG screen designer and an XBLite generator: viXen allows to prototype a Windows GUI application before coding in XBLite the actual functions inside the generated skeleton. Currently, Guy Lonné develops and maintains the viXen project at SourceForge.

• XBLite working with the native Windows API, Callum Lowcay started the WinX project. It is a GUI library (WinX.dll) written in XBLite that "wraps" many of the most useful WinAPI calls. WinX simplifies coding Windows GUI applications in XBLite by providing an interface to the Windows widgets. WinX's applications can be first prototyped using viXen by just selecting the generation switch "Use WinX" prior the generation of the source code.

Components

XBLite comes with a complete set of components.

• Compiler (can make executable files, libraries and dynamic linked libraries (DLL) files)
• Scintilla Code Editor XSEd
• Resource Compiler
• Peephole optimizer xpeeper
• Graphical user interface builder viXen (Beta stage but very usable)
• GUI library WinX

Sample Code

Here is a classic example as it might be coded in XBLite.

• Hello world program in XBLite, console mode

PROGRAM "hello"
CONSOLE
DECLARE FUNCTION Entry ()
FUNCTION Entry ()
  a$ = INLINE$ ("Hello World!\n\n\n Press Enter to quit ")
END FUNCTION
END PROGRAM

• Hello world program in XBLite, Windows GUI mode

PROGRAM "sayhello"
' interfaces to system DLLs
IMPORT "gdi32"             ' importing interface to gdi32.dll
IMPORT "user32"            ' importing interface to user32.dll
DECLARE FUNCTION Entry ()  ' declare fonction Entry()

FUNCTION Entry ()          ' define (instanciate) fonction Entry()
 ' display a message box and wait until the User clicks the 'OK!' button
 MessageBoxA (0, &"Hello world!", &"Windows GUI Version", $$MB_OK)
END FUNCTION
END PROGRAM

References

• PCOPY! Covering All The BASICs
  • PCOPY! Issue #70, June 3rd 2008, The DEF Of XBLite, Guy Lonné.
  • PCOPY! Issue #60, January 8th 2008, An Xblite Primer, Guy Lonné.
  • PCOPY! Issue #60, January 8th 2008, The ABC OF XBLite, Guy Lonné.
• GMTech Magazine
  • Issue 5 Issue 5, May 2007, page 22 A Review Of XBLite
• BASIC Programming
• XBasic The wikipedia on XBasic

External links

• The Official XBLite Website
• The XBLite Forum
• XBLite User Group On Google
• Guy Lonné: XBLite Book Of Knowledge (B.O.K.)
• Visual XBLite Environment (viXen) project at SourceForge
• The XBasic Project