Haxe is a

high-level High-level and low-level, as technical terms, are used to classify, describe and point to specific goals of a systematic operation; and are applied in a wide range of contexts, such as, for instance, in domains as widely varied as computer scienc ...

cross-platform Within computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several Computing platform, computing platforms. Some ...

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...

and

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that Translator (computing), translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primaril ...

that can produce applications and

source code In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

for many different

computing platform A computing platform, digital platform, or software platform is the infrastructure on which software is executed. While the individual components of a computing platform may be obfuscated under layers of abstraction, the ''summation of the requi ...

s from one code-base. It is

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term encompassing free ...

, released under an

MIT License The MIT License is a permissive software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts very few restrictions on reuse and therefore has high license compatibility. Unl ...

. The compiler is written in

OCaml OCaml ( , formerly Objective Caml) is a General-purpose programming language, general-purpose, High-level programming language, high-level, Comparison of multi-paradigm programming languages, multi-paradigm programming language which extends the ...

. It can be run in server-mode to provide code completion for

integrated development environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a Application software, software application that provides comprehensive facilities for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source-code editor, build automation tools, an ...

s (IDEs). Haxe includes a set of features and a

standard library In computer programming, a standard library is the library (computing), library made available across Programming language implementation, implementations of a programming language. Often, a standard library is specified by its associated program ...

Introduction to the Haxe Standard Library
Haxe Docs supported across all platforms, including numeric data types, strings,

arrays An array is a systematic arrangement of similar objects, usually in rows and columns. Things called an array include: {{TOC right Music * In twelve-tone and serial composition, the presentation of simultaneous twelve-tone sets such that the ...

maps A map is a symbolic depiction of interrelationships, commonly spatial, between things within a space. A map may be annotated with text and graphics. Like any graphic, a map may be fixed to paper or other durable media, or may be displayed on ...

binary Binary may refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * Binary number, a representation of numbers using only two values (0 and 1) for each digit * Binary function, a function that takes two arguments * Binary operation, a mathematical op ...

reflective programming In computer science, reflective programming or reflection is the ability of a process to examine, introspect, and modify its own structure and behavior. Historical background The earliest computers were programmed in their native assembly lang ...

, maths, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (

HTTP HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, wher ...

), file system and common

file format A file format is a Computer standard, standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary format, pr ...

s. Haxe also includes platform-specific application programming interfaces (

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

s) for each compiler target. ''Kha'', ''

OpenFL OpenFL is a free and open-source software framework and platform for the creation of multi-platform software application, applications and video games. OpenFL applications can be written in Haxe, JavaScript (EcmaScript 5 or 6+), or TypeScript, and ...

'', and ''Heaps.io'' are popular Haxe frameworks that enable creating multi-platform content from one codebase. Haxe originated with the idea of supporting client-side and server-side programming in one language, and simplifying the communication logic between them. Code written in Haxe can be compiled into

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior. Web browsers have ...

, C++,

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

Java virtual machine A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally descr ...

(JVM),

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared towards web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by the PHP Group. ...

, C#,

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (prog ...

, Lua and Node.js. Haxe can also directly compile SWF, HashLink, and NekoVM

bytecode Bytecode (also called portable code or p-code) is a form of instruction set designed for efficient execution by a software interpreter. Unlike human-readable source code, bytecodes are compact numeric codes, constants, and references (normal ...

and also runs in interpreted mode. Haxe supports externs (definition files) that can contain

data type In computer science and computer programming, a data type (or simply type) is a collection or grouping of data values, usually specified by a set of possible values, a set of allowed operations on these values, and/or a representation of these ...

information of extant

libraries A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

to describe target-specific interaction in a type-safe manner, like C++

header files An include directive instructs a text file processor to replace the directive text with the content of a specified file. The act of including may be logical in nature. The processor may simply process the include file content at the location of ...

can describe the structure of existing

object file An object file is a file that contains machine code or bytecode, as well as other data and metadata, generated by a compiler or assembler from source code during the compilation or assembly process. The machine code that is generated is kno ...

s. This enables to use the values defined in the files as if they were statically typed Haxe entities. Beside externs, other solutions exist to access each platform's native abilities. Many popular IDEs and

source code editor A source-code editor is a text editor program designed specifically for editing source code of computer programs. It may be a standalone application or it may be built into an integrated development environment (IDE). Features Source-code editor ...

s have support available for Haxe development. No particular development environment or tool set is officially recommended by the Haxe Foundation, although

VS Code Visual Studio Code, commonly referred to as VS Code, is an integrated development environment developed by Microsoft for Windows, Linux, macOS and web browsers. Features include support for debugging, syntax highlighting, intelligent code comple ...

IntelliJ IDEA IntelliJ IDEA () is an integrated development environment (IDE) written in Java for developing computer software written in Java, Kotlin, Groovy, and other JVM-based languages. It is developed by JetBrains (formerly known as IntelliJ) and is a ...

and HaxeDevelop have the most support for Haxe development. The core functionalities of

syntax highlighting Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors that is used for programming language, programming, scripting language, scripting, or markup language, markup languages, such as HTML. The feature displays text, especially source code, in differe ...

code completion Code completion is an autocompletion feature in many integrated development environments (IDEs) that speeds up the process of coding applications by fixing common mistakes and suggesting lines of code. This usually happens through popups while typ ...

refactoring In computer programming and software design, code refactoring is the process of restructuring existing source code—changing the '' factoring''—without changing its external behavior. Refactoring is intended to improve the design, structure, ...

debugging In engineering, debugging is the process of finding the Root cause analysis, root cause, workarounds, and possible fixes for bug (engineering), bugs. For software, debugging tactics can involve interactive debugging, control flow analysis, Logf ...

, etc. are available to various degrees.

History

Development of Haxe began in October 2005. The first

alpha version The software release life cycle is the process of developing, testing, and distributing a software product (e.g., an operating system). It typically consists of several stages, such as pre-alpha, alpha, beta, and release candidate, before the fi ...

was released on November 14, 2005. Haxe 1.0 was released in April 2006, with support for

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a mostly discontinuedAlthough it is discontinued by Adobe Inc., for the Chinese market it is developed by Zhongcheng and for the international enterprise market it is developed by Ha ...

, and NekoVM programs. Support for

was added in 2008, and C++ was added in 2009. More platforms such as C# and Java were added with a compiler overhaul in 2012. Haxe was developed by Nicolas Cannasse and other contributors, and was originally named ''haXe'' because it was short, simple, and "has an X inside", which the author asserts humorously is needed to make any new technology a success. Haxe is the successor to the open-source

ActionScript ActionScript is an object-oriented programming language originally developed by Macromedia Inc. (later acquired by Adobe). It is influenced by HyperTalk, the scripting language for HyperCard. It is now an implementation of ECMAScript (mean ...

2 compiler

MTASC MTASC (Motion-Twin ActionScript 2 Compiler) is an ActionScript 2.0 compiler written in the OCaml programming language by the company Motion Twin. It is free software and can be used alone or with other tools like swfmill to produce SWF files, ...

,MTASC Compiler
MTASC website also built by Nicolas Cannasse and is released under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first ...

version 2 or later.

Compiler

The Haxe language can compile into

that can be executed directly by the

virtual machine In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization or emulator, emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide the functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve ...

s it targets. It can compile to

in C++,

, C#,

, and Lua. Haxe also has an interpreter called ''eval''. This same interpreter is also used compile-time to run macros, which allow modification of the

abstract syntax tree An abstract syntax tree (AST) is a data structure used in computer science to represent the structure of a program or code snippet. It is a tree representation of the abstract syntactic structure of text (often source code) written in a formal ...

(AST). This strategy of compiling to multiple source code languages is inspired by the

write once, run anywhere ''Write once, run anywhere'' (WORA), or sometimes ''Write once, run everywhere'' (WORE), was a 1995 slogan created by Sun Microsystems to illustrate the cross-platform benefits of the Java (programming language), Java programming language. Ideally, ...

paradigm. It also allows the programmer to choose the best platform for the job. Typical Haxe programs run identically on all platforms, but developers can specify platform-specific code and use

conditional compilation In computer programming, conditional compilation is a compilation technique which results in differring executable programs depending on parameters specified. This technique is commonly used when these differences in the program are needed to r ...

to prevent it from compiling on other platforms. The Haxe compiler is an

optimizing compiler An optimizing compiler is a compiler designed to generate code that is optimized in aspects such as minimizing program execution time, memory usage, storage size, and power consumption. Optimization is generally implemented as a sequence of op ...

, and uses field and function inlining, tail recursion elimination,

constant folding Constant folding and constant propagation are related compiler optimizations used by many modern compilers. An advanced form of constant propagation known as sparse conditional constant propagation can more accurately propagate constants and sim ...

loop unrolling Loop unrolling, also known as loop unwinding, is a loop transformation technique that attempts to optimize a program's execution speed at the expense of its binary size, which is an approach known as space–time tradeoff. The transformation c ...

and

dead code elimination In compiler theory, dead-code elimination (DCE, dead-code removal, dead-code stripping, or dead-code strip) is a compiler optimization to remove dead code (code that does not affect the program results). Removing such code has several benefits: i ...

(DCE) to optimize the run-time performance of compiled programs. The Haxe compiler offers opt-in null-safety, it checks compile-time for nullable values. The run-time performance of Haxe programs is at comparable speed to handwritten sources.

References

External links

* {{ML programming High-level programming languages Functional languages Multi-paradigm programming languages Object-based programming languages OCaml software Pattern matching programming languages Programming languages Programming languages created in 2005 Software using the GNU General Public License Source-to-source compilers Statically typed programming languages Articles with example JavaScript code

History

Compiler

See also

References

External links