# Usage

Zink can be either directly called from the command line or imported and used in a python file.

# Command line

Running the command `z` (or `python -m zlang`) starts the REPL that, given valid Zink syntax, will return and execute the Python equivalent. It also accepts one or more file names with parameters that will be used for the transpilation process.

# Usage in Python

Zink exposes all of its API through python's `import`.

## Parsing Zink

To parse Zink code and pass it to a built-in translator:

```py
from zlang import ZinkLexer, ZinkParser
from zlang.translators import _py

def parse(s: str) -> str:
    lexer, parser = ZinkLexer(), ZinkParser()
    translator = _py()
    return translator(parser.parse(lexer.tokenize(s)))
```

## Creating a custom translator

Zink also exposes all its built-in translators in the form of classes, so creating and using a custom translator is as easy as inheriting their class methods. It is recommended to use the `py` translator instead of using the `t` one.

Handlers are defined as functions preceded by an underscore.

In this example, we're going to modify Zink's `True` and `False` to convert them to `1` and `0`:

```py
from zlang.translators import _py

class mylang(_py):
    def _TRUE(self): return "1"
    def _FALSE(self): return "0"
```

We can then plug this into our `parse` function, that will return a list of lines:

```py
from zlang import ZinkLexer, ZinkParser

# include the code from above here
# ================================

def parse(s: str) -> list[str]:
    lexer, parser = ZinkLexer(), ZinkParser()
    translator = mylang()
    #            ^^^^^^ notice mylang instead of _py
    return translator(parser.parse(lexer.tokenize(s)))
```

Testing our code:

```py
print(parse("True\n")[0])  # 1
print(parse("False\n")[0]) # 0
```