Squirrel (programming language)

Squirrel is a high level, imperative, object oriented programming language designed by Alberto Demichelis as a lightweight scripting language suited to embedding inside larger applications, particularly video games. First appearing on September 6, 2003, Squirrel is dynamically typed and multi paradigm, supporting scripting, imperative, functional and object oriented styles of programming within a single small implementation. Its compiler and virtual machine together fit into roughly seven thousand lines of C++ code, which keeps the language easy to embed and to extend from host applications written in C or C++, a design goal that has made it a popular choice for scripting gameplay logic, tools and configuration inside commercial game engines. Squirrel's syntax draws visible influence from C++ and JavaScript, while some of its data handling and iteration idioms echo Lua and Python, reflecting its position among other small embeddable scripting languages built for performance sensitive host applications. The language is released under the permissive MIT license, uses the .nut file extension for its source files, and runs across a wide range of platforms including Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS, FreeBSD and Illumos. Development has continued gradually since its introduction, with the 3.2 stable release from February 10, 2022 remaining the most recent widely used version.