Pike

Description #

Pike is a dynamic, high-level programming language with syntax similar to C and Java, used for developing large, scalable applications—especially for web services and multimedia systems.

History #

Pike originated in the early 1990s as a fork of the LPC language at the University of Linköping in Sweden. It was developed and maintained by Fredrik Hübinette and others at Idonex and Roxen Internet Software.

Hello World Code #

int main() {
    write("Hello, World!\n");
    return 0;
}

How to Run #

Option 1: Online
https://tio.run/ → Select “Pike” from the list.

Option 2: Local
Install Pike:

sudo apt install pike

Then run:

pike hello.pike

Key Concepts #

• Statically scoped but dynamically typed
• Interpreted with optional bytecode compilation
• C-style syntax with object-oriented features
• Strong standard library for networking, file I/O, XML
• Built-in multithreading support
• Unicode-aware from the ground up
• Modular and embeddable
• Used in Roxen WebServer and enterprise applications
• Compilation to Pike bytecode
• Open source under GPL/LGPL

Try It Online #

https://tio.run/#pike

Fun Facts #

• Pike was used to build the Roxen WebServer, one of the earliest XML-capable web servers.
• It combines the power of C with the flexibility of scripting languages.
• Its tools and language design have influenced the Swedish open-source community.

Resources #

Official Site
Manual
GitHub Mirror
Try It Online (TIO)