Word description A brainfuck program is a sequence of eight commands that are executed sequentially. An instruction pointer begins at the first command, and each command is executed until the program terminates when the instruction pointer moves beyond the last command.
The eight language commands, each consisting of a single character, are the following:
Character
Meaning
>
increment the data pointer (to point to the next cell to the right).
<
decrement the data pointer (to point to the next cell to the left).
+
increment (increase by one) the byte at the data pointer.
-
decrement (decrease by one) the byte at the data pointer.
.
output the value of the byte at the data pointer.
,
accept one byte of input, storing its value in the byte at the data pointer.
[
if the byte at the data pointer is zero, then instead of moving the instruction pointer forward to the next command, jump it forward to the command after the matching ] command*.
]
if the byte at the data pointer is nonzero, then instead of moving the instruction pointer forward to the next command, jump it back to the command after the matching [ command*.
Brainfuck programs can be translated into C using the following substitutions, assuming ptr is of type unsigned char* and has been initialized to point to an array of zeroed bytes: