A Read-Eval-Print Loop (REPL) is an interactive interpreter to a programming language. It allows for simple experimentation with a language by bypassing the compile stage of the "code -> compile -> execute" cycle.
There are 4 components to a REPL:
- A read function, which reads input from the keyboard
- An eval function, which evaluates code passed to it
- A print function, which formats and displays results
- A loop function, which runs the three previous commands until termination