Szathmáry László honlapja @ DEIK | Nim2 / Install a REPL

Although Nim is a compiled language, it also has a REPL. (Shameless plug: I also wrote a simple REPL for the C language, see here).

Nim's REPL (which is a 3rd-party library) is called INim.

$ nimble install inim

$ inim
👑 INim 1.0.0
Nim Compiler Version 2.2.8 [Linux: amd64] at /home/jabba/.nimble/bin/nim
nim> 1+1
2 == type int
nim>

It's slow, because in the background it updates and compiles a Nim file, but it's still very useful if you quickly want to try something.

Remove a package

$ nimble uninstall inim

The secret REPL

Nim has a secret REPL:

$ nim secret
Hint: used config file '/home/jabba/.choosenim/toolchains/nim-2.2.8/config/nim.cfg' [Conf]
Hint: used config file '/home/jabba/.choosenim/toolchains/nim-2.2.8/config/config.nims' [Conf]
>>> 1+1
2: int literal(2)
>>>

To get GNU readline support (arrow keys, history, etc.), launch it with "rlwrap nim secret".

It's a hidden, undocumented and quite limited REPL, built into the nim compiler itself.

Nim has a virtual machine (VM), which is used for the compile-time macro evaluations, for instance. nim secret uses this VM. It has its own limitations, so I suggest using INim, which is a more full-featured REPL. However, you can also try nim secret and test its capabilities.