Nick's Brainfuck Interpreter (NBI)

An interpreter for brainfuck, the (in)famous esolang created by Urban Müller in 1993. This is meant to be a personal learning exercise so I can develop my understanding of how interpreters work. This interpreter has been tested on a variety of brainfuck source code files, and works without issue.

Language Design

brainfuck programs consist of eight instructions, which manipulate a sequential number of cells using a pointer. From Wikipedia:

Character	Description
>	Increment the data pointer by one (to point to the next cell to the right).
<	Decrement the data pointer by one (to point to the next cell to the left).
+	Increment the byte at the data pointer by one.
-	Decrement the byte at the data pointer by one.
.	Output the byte at the data pointer.
,	Accept one byte of input, storing its value in the byte at the data pointer.
[	If the byte at the data pointer is zero, then instead of moving the instruction pointer forward to the next command, jump it forward to the command after the matching ] command.
]	If the byte at the data pointer is nonzero, then instead of moving the instruction pointer forward to the next command, jump it back to the command after the matching [ command.

Using the Interpreter

Prerequisites

First, ensure the following tools are installing on your machine:

1. The GNU Compiler Collection
2. GNU Make
3. Git

Run the following in your terminal to clone this repository, navigate to its root directory, and compile nbi:

git clone https://github.com/nsdigirolamo/nbi.git && cd nbi && make

Running

After compiling nbi, you can run it on any file that contains brainfuck source code. Brainfuck source code typically uses the .b file extension:

./nbi samples/hello_world.b

References:

• Yet another brainfuck reference.