Crystal (programming language)

Last updated
Crystal
Crystal language logo.svg
Paradigm Multi-paradigm: object-oriented, concurrent
Designed by Ary Borenszweig, Juan Wajnerman, Brian Cardiff
Developer Manas Technology Solutions
First appearedJune 19, 2014;10 years ago (2014-06-19) [1]
Stable release
1.15.1 [2]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg / 4 February 2025;15 days ago (4 February 2025)
Typing discipline static, inferred, nominal, duck
Implementation languageCrystal
Platform IA-32 (i386), x86-64, AArch64 [3]
OS Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Windows [3]
License Apache License 2.0
Filename extensions .cr
Website crystal-lang.org
Influenced by
Ruby, Go [4]

Crystal is a high-level general-purpose, object-oriented programming language, designed and developed by Ary Borenszweig, Juan Wajnerman, Brian Cardiff and more than 400 contributors. [5] With syntax inspired by the language Ruby, [6] it is a compiled language with static type-checking, but specifying the types of variables or method arguments is generally unneeded. Types are resolved by an advanced global type inference algorithm. [7] [8] Crystal is currently in active development. It is released as free and open-source software under the Apache License version 2.0.

Contents

History

Work on the language began in June 2011, [9] with the aim of merging the elegance and productivity of Ruby with the speed, efficiency, and type safety of a compiled language. [10] [9] Initially named Joy, it was quickly renamed to Crystal. [9]

The Crystal compiler was first written in Ruby, but later rewritten in Crystal, thus becoming self-hosting, as of November 2013. [11] The first official version was released in June 2014. [12] In July 2016, Crystal joined the TIOBE index.

Description

Although resembling the Ruby language in syntax, Crystal compiles to much more efficient native code using an LLVM backend, at the cost of precluding the dynamic aspects of Ruby. The advanced global type inference used by the Crystal compiler, combined with union types, gives it more the feel of a higher-level scripting language than many other comparable programming languages. It has automated garbage collection and offers a Boehm collector. Crystal possesses a macro system and supports generics as well as method and operator overloading. Its concurrency model is inspired by communicating sequential processes (CSP) and implements lightweight fibers and channels (for interfiber communication), inspired by Go. [4]

Examples

Hello World

This is the simplest way to write the Hello World program in Crystal:

puts"Hello World!"

The same as in Ruby.

Or using an object-oriented programming style:

classGreeterdefinitialize(@name:String)enddefsaluteputs"Hello #{@name}!"endendg=Greeter.new("world")g.salute

HTTP server

require"http/server"server=HTTP::Server.newdo|context|context.response.content_type="text/plain"context.response.print"Hello world! The time is #{Time.local}"endserver.bind_tcp("0.0.0.0",8080)puts"Listening on http://0.0.0.0:8080"server.listen

TCP echo server

require"socket"defhandle_client(client)message=client.getsclient.putsmessageendserver=TCPServer.new("localhost",1234)whileclient=server.accept?spawnhandle_client(client)end

Type inference and union types

The following code defines an array containing different types with no usable common ancestor. Crystal automatically creates a union type out of the types of the individual items.

desired_things=[:unicorns,"butterflies",1_000_000]ptypeof(desired_things.first)# typeof returns the compile time type, here (Symbol | String | Int32)pdesired_things.first.class# the class method returns the runtime type, here Symbol

Concurrency

Channels can be used to communicate between fibers, which are initiated using the keyword spawn.

channel=Channel(Int32).newspawndoputs"Before first send"channel.send(1)puts"Before second send"channel.send(2)endputs"Before first receive"value=channel.receiveputsvalue# => 1puts"Before second receive"value=channel.receiveputsvalue# => 2

Adoption

In 2020, it was reported that the infotainment units in vehicles produced by Nikola Corporation were written in Crystal. [13] Much of the backend of the Kagi search engine is written with Crystal. [14]

Further reading

References

  1. ↑ "Crystal 0.1.0 released!". crystal-lang. 19 June 2014.
  2. ↑ "Release 1.15.1". 4 February 2025. Retrieved 10 February 2025.
  3. 1 2 "Crystal Platform Support". crystal-lang.org.
  4. 1 2 "Crystal multithreading support". 23 February 2024.
  5. ↑ "Contributors" . Retrieved July 25, 2019– via GitHub.
  6. ↑ Borenszweig, Ary (June 16, 2016). "Crystal 0.18.0 released!". crystal-lang.org.
  7. ↑ Brian J., Cardiff (September 9, 2013). "Type inference part 1". crystal-lang.org.
  8. ↑ "Programming with Crystal: 'A language for humans and computers'". devm.io. July 3, 2023.
  9. 1 2 3 David, María Inti (April 1, 2016). "The story behind #CrystalLang". manas.tech.
  10. ↑ Hsieh, Adler (September 20, 2015). "Why Crystal programming language?". adlerhsieh.com.
  11. ↑ Borenszweig, Ary (November 14, 2013). "Good bye Ruby Thursday". crystal-lang.org.
  12. ↑ Borenszweig, Ary (June 19, 2014). "Crystal 0.1.0 released!". crystal-lang.org.
  13. ↑ Pettinati, Martin (11 February 2020). "Nikola Motor Company: Crystal powered dashboards on the trucks of the future | Manas.Tech". Manas Technology Solutions.
  14. ↑ "Zac Nowicki – Tales from Kagi | CrystalConf 2023". 13 November 2023.
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