Amber CLI can be used as a runtime or as a compiler.

This output is generated from the 0.3.5-alpha version.

Usage: amber [OPTIONS] [INPUT] [OUTPUT]

Arguments:
  [INPUT]   '-' to read from stdin
  [OUTPUT]  '-' to output to stdout, '--silent' to discard

Options:
  -e, --eval <EVAL>     Code to evaluate
      --docs            Generate docs (OUTPUT is dir instead, default: `docs/`)
      --disable-format  Don't format the output file
      --minify          Minify the resulting code
  -h, --help            Print help
  -V, --version         Print version

For detailed usage instructions, refer to the Amber usage guide.

The --docs option extracts comments prefixed with /// (triple slashes) from the Amber file and generates a Markdown file for documentation.

Using the --disable-format option prevents the execution of external formatting tools after the Bash compilation process.

The --minify option compresses the generated Bash code to reduce its size.

For example the following line will simply execute file.ab as a script file. Amber code will be compiled to BashScript and then executed all in one go.

amber file.ab

If you want to run just a small expression, you do that as well. Simply pass the -e (execute) flag to the command.

amber -e 'echo upper("hello world!")'
# Output: HELLO WORLD!

Notice that when executing a single expression, Amber automatically includes its standard library for you. This can be really handy when you're in the flow and all you want is to use a function from Amber's standard library in the terminal.

There are times when you prefer to just compile amber code to a script for example when dealing with cron jobs.

amber input.ab output.sh

You’ll notice that the compiled script is immediately callable; hence, there’s no need to add executable permissions using chmod, for instance. Amber grants the permission automatically.

Furthermore, Amber adds a shebang at the top of the compiled script. This enables you to run the code simply without any additional commands.

./output.sh

You can find it in Visual Studio Code extension store under the name Amber Language.

Or you can download it here in the Visual Studio Marketplace website.

You can download it from https://github.com/amber-lang/zed-amber-extension.

The official Amber Vim plugin supports syntax highlighting, and sets some Vim options for easier editing.

You can clone it into your Vim plugin directory from https://github.com/amber-lang/amber-vim.