This page documents usage of the official asciidots interpreter.


The first argument of the interpreter script is the dots file that you wish to run.

Here’s an example of running the counter sample program (the working directory is the dots repo folder):

$ asciidots samples/counter.dots

Here is the list of available flags:

-t [ticks]        Run the program for a specified number of ticks (Default to 0: no limit)

-o [output-limit] Run the program for a specified number of outputs (Default to 0: no limit)

-s                Run without printing ANYTHING to the console. Useful for benchmarking

-d                Run the program in debug mode. It shows the program and highlights the dots with red. Press enter to step the program once.

Some extra flags when debugging:
-a [delay]        Step the program automatically, using the specified delay in seconds. Decimal numbers are permitted, and so is 0.

-w                Run the program without using ncurses. This can fix problems related to Windows.

-l [line-count]   When not in compatibility mode, reserve the specified number of the lines for displaying the program

This is how one might debug a program for 300 ticks while running it automatically with a delay of 0.05 seconds:

$ asciidots samples/counter.dots -t 300 -d -a 0.05