Other Features
Frink has arbitrary-size integers, arbitrary-size rational numbers, arbitrary-precision floating-point numbers, complex numbers, and interval arithmetic. It also has a number of optimized functions for number theory computations.
Frink uses Unicode characters throughout, allowing it to represent most of the world's languages.
On systems with an internet connection, Frink can translate dozens of human languages, including some requiring right-to-left reading, and it can also convert among current currency and precious metal values as well as inflation-adjusted US dollar and British pound values.
Frink has regular expressions for text processing which are very similar to those in Perl or Ruby.
Other built-in datatypes include dynamically resizable arrays, dictionaries, sets, enumerating expressions, and anonymous functions. Frink also allows writing of object-oriented programs, although inheritance is not yet implemented.
Frink is not exactly a dynamically typed nor a statically typed language. By default, any value may be placed into any variable. However, for more safety, arbitrary constraints may be placed on any variable, ensuring that only values meeting the constraints can be assigned to the variable. For example, one can constrain a variable to only contain values that have dimensions of power. Any number of arbitrary constraints may be placed on a variable, including constraints described by user-defined functions. For example, a variable or function argument could be constrained to only contain prime numbers greater than 100.
Frink contains a pattern-matching and tree-rewriting engine that allows transformation of one mathematical expression to another. This allows symbolic manipulation of equations, solving of systems of equations, simplification of algebraic expressions, and symbolic derivatives and integrals with the proper rules defined.
Frink includes concise commands for creating graphical user interfaces as well as animated or static vector and bitmapped graphics, optionally with scaling directives for physically dimensioned drawings.
Date and time values are integrated with the units of measure. Dates and times can be specified and used in calculations in a wide variety of formats. A date/time represents a particular moment in time, and can be converted to different timezones, Julian day, Modified Julian day, Dynamical Time, and many other systems of time. Frink keeps track of the quirks of these different systems, even down to leap seconds.
Frink can call Java methods and automatically convert its internal types to and from Java types, allowing use of external Java libraries. Frink can also be embedded in a Java program with only a few lines of code.
Frink Server Pages uses Frink as a language for creating dynamic web-based resources, similar to PHP or Active Server Pages.
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