Life & fun · September 11, 2025
I built a minimal Forth-like stack interpreter library in C
This weekend I created stacklib.h - a single-header library that brings Forth-style stack operations to C. It implements a basic interpreter with: - Stack operations (push/pop/dup/swap/over/drop) - Arithmetic (+, -, *, /) - Output (., emit, cr) - Stack inspection (.s, depth) Example usage: Stack s; stack_init(&s); dict_init(); exec(&s, "10 20 + ."); // Prints "30" exec(&s, "1 2 3 4 .s"); // Shows stack contents The library is self-contained, requires no dependencies, and handles basic error checking. It was inspired by wanting to understand…
I built a minimal Forth-like stack interpreter library in C launched on September 11, 2025 with 47 votes, #448 of 8,160 launches that month and more than 90% of that year's launches.
In plain words
Stacklib.h is a single-header C library that implements a minimal Forth-like stack interpreter. It provides stack operations like push, pop, dup, and swap, along with basic arithmetic and output commands. The library requires no external dependencies, includes error checking, and allows users to execute stack-based commands through a simple C interface. It is designed for developers interested in learning how Forth works or exploring stack-based programming concepts within C projects.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
This weekend I created stacklib.h - a single-header library that brings Forth-style stack operations to C. It implements a basic interpreter with: - Stack operations (push/pop/dup/swap/over/drop) - Arithmetic (+, -, *, /) - Output (., emit, cr) - Stack inspection (.s, depth) Example…
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