Getting Started

Playground

If you want to start exploring Steel you can use the Steel Playground

Local Install options

A local install provides

1. The Steel interpreter, steel
2. The Steel dynamic library installer, cargo-steel-lib
3. The Steel Language Server, steel-language-server
4. The Steel libraries under the cogs directory
5. The Steel package manager forge

Using cargo's --git option

For a completely managed install through cargo use the following command

$ cargo install --git https://github.com/mattwparas/steel.git steel-interpreter steel-forge steel-language-server cargo-steel-lib

If you previously installed forge and run into an error saying that the binary is already installed from the package forge, please run:

$ cargo install --git https://github.com/mattwparas/steel.git steel-forge --force

Manually cloning the Steel repository

You will need to have Rust installed on your system.

1. Clone the Steel repository
2. From the cloned repository's root folder execute cargo xtask install.

Steel CLI

Once you have Steel installed you can start the interpreter in your terminal by issuing the command steel¹.

Steel's CLI provides some other options.

$steel --help

Steel repl and command line interface

Usage: steel [DEFAULT_FILE] [ARGUMENTS]... [COMMAND]

Commands:
  bytecode     Output a debug display of the fully transformed bytecode [aliases: b]
  ast          Print a debug display of the fully expanded AST [aliases: a]
  interactive  Enter the repl with the given file loaded [aliases: r]
  test         Tests the module - only tests modules which provide values [aliases: t]
  doc          Generate the documentation from source code [aliases: d]
  compile      Compile. (Experimental) [aliases: c]
  dylib        Build a dylib from the root of this directory [aliases: dl]
  completions  Generate Shell completions

Arguments:
  [DEFAULT_FILE]  The existence of this argument indicates whether we want to run the repl, or interpret this file
  [ARGUMENTS]...  Arguments to the input file

Options:
  -h, --help     Print help
  -V, --version  Print version

Each sub-command has its own --help option that provides more information on the sub-commands use.

Shell autocompletions for steel

The steel CLI can generate the necessary code to provide CLI autocompletion for supported shells. For example for Bash

$ steel completions bash > steel.bash

Will generate the file steel.bash with all the Bash related code that adds autocompletion features to the steel CLI in Bash. Consult your shell's documentation on how to install and permanently have these autocompletions available.

1. Typically the binary will be installed in .cargo/bin under your user's home directory. Steel libraries by default reside in .steel/cogs under your user's home directory. ↩