About
Brainfuck is a minimal programming language which consists of 8 commands (< > + - [ ] . ,) and an instruction pointer
which operates on a memory tape.
Detailed explanation can be viewed in the Wikipedia page.
A collection of program snippets are available at the Brainfuck archive.
Examples (click to load)
Implementation assumptions
There are a few implementation specific factors to designing a Brainfuck interpreter. Brainfucked implements the following design:
- Cell size: Classical 1 byte operands. Essentially operates in the ASCII range of 0 to 255
- Memory size: Memory tape expands infinitely to the right. Causes error on moving beyond the left
- Wrapping: Memory values wrap at both extremes of ASCII range. 0 decrements to 255; 255 increments to 0
- EOF behaviour: Will always prompt for input when there is no more to consume
Optimization
About the optional 'Minor optimization' in this interpreter: when enabled, the pre-processing fuses together multiple consecutive
occurrences of the 4 operands < > + -
+++..---[[]],,>><< becomes 3+..3-[[]],,2>2<
Notice that the program now becomes a superset of Brainfuck language.
Speed savings are significant on time intensive programs like Mandelbrot (~20s compared to ~130s).