scalu (server/client arithmetic logical unit) is an event based programming language that exists for the purpose of building sandboxable scripts that run on Source engine clients, or more generally, any engine which has inherited a Quake-like configuration system. Scripts in the Source Engine are otherwise written entirely by creatively using the console command alias, somewhat akin to POSIX alias. This command is used to construct finite state machines that can perform logical operations and store state between key presses and game actions. scalu automates this process and adds composable PL constructs to make writing scripts easier and more maintainable.
To run scalu, you will need Python 3.6 or later installed on your system. Create a directory on your system and then clone scalu.
git clone https://github.com/ArgosOfIthica/scalu.git
If you do not have git installed, you can simply download the project from Github and unpack it in a directory of your choice. Once that is done, you should have a running scalu compiler.
Input files go in the scalu_in directory. To compile them, go to the root directory and run:
python -m scalu compile
Linux users may need to run:
python3 -m scalu compile
The output will be located in a new directory called scalu_out. Copy these into your configuration files; the exact location of these files will depend on platform and game.
scalu can also be used outside of the project directory. To do this, run:
python -m pip install --user .
Linux users may need to run:
python3 -m pip install --user .
The scalu compiler allows you to change some of its default behavior with optional arguments. For example:
To specify input files and directories, you can use the --input flag:
scalu compile --input /path/to/directory example.scalu
To specify an output directory, you can use the --output flag:
scalu compile --output /path/to/output/folder
By default, the compiler will also remove all files in output directory. To disable this behavior, you can use the --noremove flag.
You can find documentation in the Github wiki at https://github.com/ArgosOfIthica/scalu/wiki