The alphabet in programming languages

Question

Our task is to, for each letter of the (English) alphabet, write a program that prints the alphabet, in a language whose name starts with that letter.

Input: none

Output:

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

uppercase and trailing newline optional

Rules:

• The scoring metric is the length of the programming language name, plus the length of the code. Hence, C will be assessed a "penalty" of 1, while GolfScript will be assessed a penalty of 10.
• One language/implementation per answer. Multiple answers are encouraged.
• If a programming language name's first letter is not an English letter, it should not be coerced into one. It will be treated as a separate letter (meaning less competition).
• No answer will be accepted until every English letter has a solution.

---

Current rankings:

• A​PL: 5
• B​NQ: 10
• C​anvas: 7
• D​OS: 13
• E​SMin: 7
• F​ig: ~4.646
• G​s2: 4
• H​usk: 8
• I​mplicit: 15
• J​apt: 6
• Keg​: 6
• L​y: 13
• M​ATL: 7
• N​ibbles: 9.5
• O​hm v2: 9
• P​ip: 4
• Q​uadR: 9
• R​ProgN: 7
• S​tax: 6
• T​hunno: 8
• U​iua: 10
• V​: 4
• W​: 4
• X​Jam: 10
• Y​: 30
• Z​80Golf: 16

Tell me if I'm missing anybody.

Automatic leaderboard (experimental)

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Answer 1

S is for SmileBASIC, 39 37 bytes

FOR I=65TO 90?CHR$(I);:NEXT

Answer 2

S is for SMBF, 10 chars -> Score: 14

SMBF stands for Self-modifying Brainf***, and both names are used interchangeably. The original interpreters were named smbf.c and smbf.rb.

\x1a is a hex literal (a single non-printable ASCII character) for the decimal number 26.

<[-<.+>]a\x1a

The \x1a is used as a loop counter. a is printed and incremented each time.

Answer 3

R is for R, 17 bytes Score -> 18

intToUtf8(97:122)

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Answer 4

M is for M, 20 characters → Score: 21

let s={"a".."z"}in s

(M language reference)

Answer 5

Z is for Z80Golf, 9 bytes + 7 = 16

00000000: 3e61 061a ff3c 10fc 76                   >a...<..v

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According to the Web Archive, Z80Golf code golf machine was created (at least) in December 2007.

Disassembly

start:
  ld a, 97  ; the char to print
  ld b, 26  ; loop count
loop:
  rst $38   ; 1-byte alias for putchar
  inc a
  djnz loop ; decrement b and jump to `loop` if nonzero
  halt      ; end program

Answer 6

S is for Swift, 76 characters -> Score: 81

var s=""
for i in 97...122{s.append((Character(UnicodeScalar(i))))}
print(s)

Answer 7

I is for Io, 31 characters -> Score: 33

for($,65,90,$asCharacter print)

Answer 8

Z is for Zsh, 19 characters -> Score: 22

19 character solution thanks to @GammaFunction.

<<<${(j::):-{a..z}}

Another 18 character solution using Perl.

perl -eprint\ a..z

Answer 9

F is for Fish, 16 bytes; score 20

"a"r:o1+:"{"=?;r

Answer 10

Wake, 33 bytes, score 37

all: "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"

Answer 11

F is for Forth (gforth), 26 + 5 = 31

'{ 'a [do] [i] emit [loop]

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Two improvements over the submission by leancz 6 years ago:

• An ASCII char prefixed with a quote gives the ASCII value of that char. So '{ saves a byte over 123. 'a is just for consistency.
• The looping words including do and loop can't be used in interpreted mode, but gforth provides interpreted versions surrounded with brackets like [do] and [loop]. If a function uses three or less such words, using interpreted mode saves some bytes, as illustrated below.

\ using compiled mode
: a '{ 'a do i emit loop ; a
\ using interpreted mode
'{ 'a [do] [i] emit [loop]

Answer 12

D is for D2, 2 + 6 = 8

!a[.+]

!a expand to 10 +, setting the current cell to 10 (a in base 36), and [.+] print the current cell as a base 36 string and increment the cell. Since the maximum value a cell can hold is 35, at 36 the cell is zeroed and the loop stop.

Answer 13

P is for Pyth, 1 character -> Score: 5

G

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That's it - just 1 letter. This is how it works:

• The variable G is by default initialised to abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz in this language.
• By default, the value returned by a program is printed out to the standard output.

Answer 14

Jelly, 2 bytes, score: 7

Jelly has a built-in.

Øa

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Answer 15

Pyth, 1 byte, score: 5

Pyth has a shorter built-in than Jelly.

G

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Answer 16

Pip, 1 byte, score: 4

z

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Answer 17

V (vim), 3 bytes, score: 4

¬az

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Answer 18

Wren, 58 bytes

The iteration method

System.printAll((97..122).map{|i|String.fromCodePoint(i)})

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Wren, 42 bytes

The boring method

System.print("abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz")

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Answer 19

Befunge-93, 33 bytes

I thought I could beat Brachylog... never mind.

"a">:,1+:"{"-#v_@
   ^          <

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Answer 20

Ly, 11 bytes -> Score: 13

'Rrp['`+o]

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Explanation

'          Push 26
  R          0-range
   r         reverse stack
    p        Pop 0
     ['`+o] Output the whole stack, added by 97

Answer 21

F is for Foo, 17 bytes, score: 20

&65>&26(-1<$c+1>)

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Ties the Fish answer.

Answer 22

DOS, x86, 10 bytes + 3 = 13

This answer is fundamentally the same as Peter Cordes' x86, but uses DOS for I/O and as the "framework" of sorts to be able to "print[s] the alphabet" per the challenge description.

One could attempt to make the case that since this uses DOS API for said I/O that it one-step higher level than just x86. After all, DOS is an operating system, programming API, interpreter and framework all rolled into one, right? Also most every submission here eventually gets compiled down to machine code eventually to run, so aren't we really considering the submission to be the highest level required to produce the desired output?

Okay, feel free to call this rationalization baloney. It's not shorter than Peter's earlier x86 so just thought I'd throw in another take, competing or not! :)

Binary:

00000000: b061 cd29 403c 7a7e f9c3                 .a.)@<z~..

Listing:

B0 61       MOV  AL, 'a'        ; start at 'a'
    CLOOP:
CD 29       INT  29H            ; write AL to console
40          INC  AX             ; increment letter
3C 7A       CMP  AL, 'z'        ; is <= 'z'?
7E F9       JLE  CLOOP          ; if so, keep looping
C3          RET                 ; return to DOS

And yes "DOS" can be considered a generic term for other different non-IBM PC Disk Operating Systems. However Wikipedia's entry for "DOS" specifically refers to IBM DOS and describes DOS as "a common shorthand for disk-based operating systems on IBM PC compatibles".

Answer 23

ink, 26 bytes, score: 29

Glad to hear that newer languages are allowed.

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

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Answer 24

Husk, 4 bytes → Score: 8

…"ab

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Answer 25

Ni, 13 bytes, score: 15

#61>#1a{<!+>}

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Explanation

#61           Set Current as 'a'
   >          Move the pointer right
    #1a       Set current as 26
       {      Repeat 26 times:
        <         Move left
         !        Print the letter
          +       Increment the letter
           >      Move right
            }     (Automatically decrement counter)

Answer 26

W, 3 bytes (score: 4)

Near built-in solution, intended to beat Wake.

'zk

Explanation

'z   Push the character z
  k  Generate a downwards character range for that character.

Answer 27

Q is for QuadR, 26 bytes, Score: 31

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

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Answer 28

V for Vyxal, 2 bytes, score 2+5=7

ka

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Dunno someone has posted this already

Answer 29

K is for K (ngn/k), 9 bytes -> Score: 18

`c$97+!26

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Bruh.

Answer 30

Fig, \$2\log_{256}(96)\approx\$ 1.646 bytes + 3 = 4.646

ca

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