What is Mara ?

Mara is a programming language dedicated to 8bit ATMEL AVR microcontrollers with a focus on simplicity and productivity.
It provides to AVR architecture some features that high-level programming languages have introduced on 32/64 bits processors, such as classes and type inference.
Thus, the goal of this project is to simplify the programming of these microcontrollers for all those who do not wish to use (or learn) the C or assembly language.

Some features of Mara :

• Simple and structured syntax
• Type inference
• Classes and objects
• Explicit error messages
• Standard library containing usual data structures
• Inline assembler
• Finite-state machines

A simple Mara syntax example:

# fact.mr

begin lib
  func fact_rec(n)
    return n = 0 ? 1 :              \
      (n * fact_rec(n - 1))
  end

  func fact_it(n)
    var a <- 1
    for i <- 1 to n do
      a ** i
    done
    return a
  end
end

# main.mr

using fact

begin setup
  PORTD.set_mode(0xFF)
  PORTD.write(fact_it(3)) # print 6
end

begin loop
end

Changelog

Revision 8 (2013-04-29)

• Improved error messages
• Added term mode (including umara compiler and VM)
• AVR-GCC is now executed properly by marac
• Improved string parsing
• Improved standard library (EEPROM, string, ...)
• Fixed many bugs...

Revision 5 (2013-04-15)

• Added Finite-State Machine
• Improved compound assignment
• Added Website
• Removed all ocamlyacc reduce/shift conflicts
• Fixed many bugs