AngelScript Language
Aeon uses the AngelScript scripting language, which first appeared in 2003 and has found use in many games, being the scripting language of choice for Nightdive Studio's Kex Engine. It most closely resembles C++, but with some features omitted and extensions added.
This documentation serves as an introduction to and informal specification of the AngelScript language from a programmer's viewpoint. It should also be useful for non-programmers looking for specifics on the inner workings of the language and more information on the functions and properties provided to it.
AngelScript runs in a virtual machine much like ACS, but unlike ACS is compiled from source and compiled into bytecode when Eternity starts up. Whilst it is possible to pre-compile AngelScript to bytecode Eternity does not support this, and so Aeon can only be read from source files by the engine.
Reading This Document
This document's syntax definitions are written to be easy to read but still close enough to a formal syntax that, for instance, someone writing a parser could do so off of this document. Here is a legend describing all syntax element spellings:
| Spelling | Meaning |
|---|---|
Symbol | Any symbol in monospace is spelled as-is. |
| Syntax | Any syntax definition defined by this document. |
| * | A syntax element of which there may be any amount of. |
| + | A syntax element of which there may be one or more of. |
| ? | An optional element, which may be omitted. |
| {N} | A syntax element of which there may be exactly N amount of. |
| {N..M} | A syntax element of which there may be between N and M of, inclusive. |
| (Element) | A sequence of elements that may have modifiers such as * or + applied to them. |
| List items or "," | Alternatives available for this element. |
Some example syntax definitions would be:
- ExampleElement
-
keywordSomeKeyword (,SomeKeyword)?; - SomeKeyword
-
exampleexample2example3
Which would mean, in Aeon, you could write things like:
keyword example;
keyword example2, example3;