Builtins Reference

BioLang ships with 750+ built-in functions spanning bioinformatics, statistics, data wrangling, visualization, and systems programming. Every function is available without imports — just call it.

Showing all 750+ builtins

Name	Category	Signature	Description
print	Core	print(values...) -> nil	Print values to stdout without newline
println	Core	println(values...) -> nil	Print values to stdout with newline
len	Core	len(value) -> int	Return length of string, list, or map
type	Core	type(value) -> string	Return type name as string
range	Core	range(start, end, step?) -> list	Generate integer sequence
abs	Core	abs(n) -> number	Absolute value
min	Core	min(a, b) -> number	Return smaller of two values
max	Core	max(a, b) -> number	Return larger of two values
int	Core	int(value) -> int	Cast to integer
float	Core	float(value) -> float	Cast to float
str	Core	str(value) -> string	Cast to string
bool	Core	bool(value) -> bool	Cast to boolean
assert	Core	assert(cond, msg?) -> nil	Assert condition is truthy or abort
debug	Core	debug(value) -> value	Print debug representation, return value
typeof	Core	typeof(value) -> string	Alias for type()
is_nil	Core	is_nil(value) -> bool	Check if value is nil
to_string	Core	to_string(value) -> string	Convert any value to its string representation
map	Collections	map(list, fn) -> list	Apply function to each element
filter	Collections	filter(list, fn) -> list	Keep elements where fn returns true
reduce	Collections	reduce(list, fn, init?) -> value	Accumulate list into single value
sort	Collections	sort(list) -> list	Sort in ascending order
sort_by	Collections	sort_by(list, fn) -> list	Sort with custom comparator
push	Collections	push(list, value) -> list	Append element to end of list
pop	Collections	pop(list) -> value	Remove and return last element
shift	Collections	shift(list) -> value	Remove and return first element
zip	Collections	zip(a, b) -> list	Pair elements from two lists
enumerate	Collections	enumerate(list) -> list	Pair each element with its index
flatten	Collections	flatten(list) -> list	Flatten nested lists one level
reverse	Collections	reverse(list) -> list	Reverse element order
unique	Collections	unique(list) -> list	Remove duplicate elements
first	Collections	first(list) -> value	Return first element
last	Collections	last(list) -> value	Return last element
take	Collections	take(list, n) -> list	Take first n elements
drop	Collections	drop(list, n) -> list	Drop first n elements
any	Collections	any(list, fn) -> bool	True if any element matches predicate
all	Collections	all(list, fn) -> bool	True if all elements match predicate
find	Collections	find(list, fn) -> value\|nil	Find first matching element
find_index	Collections	find_index(list, fn) -> int\|nil	Find index of first match
chunk	Collections	chunk(list, size) -> list	Split list into chunks of given size
window_slide	Collections	window_slide(list, size) -> list	Sliding window over list
group_by	Collections	group_by(list, fn) -> map	Group elements by key function
mean	Math	mean(list) -> float	Arithmetic mean
median	Math	median(list) -> float	Middle value of sorted list
stdev	Math	stdev(list) -> float	Standard deviation (sample)
variance	Math	variance(list) -> float	Variance (sample)
sum	Math	sum(list) -> number	Sum of all elements
quantile	Math	quantile(list, q) -> float	Q-th quantile (0.0 to 1.0)
ttest	Math	ttest(a, b) -> map	Two-sample t-test
correlation	Math	correlation(a, b) -> float	Pearson correlation coefficient
sqrt	Math	sqrt(n) -> float	Square root
log	Math	log(n) -> float	Natural logarithm
random	Math	random() -> float	Random float in [0, 1)
upper	String	upper(s) -> string	Convert to uppercase
lower	String	lower(s) -> string	Convert to lowercase
split	String	split(s, delim) -> list	Split string by delimiter
join	String	join(list, sep) -> string	Join list elements into string
replace	String	replace(s, old, new) -> string	Replace all occurrences
contains	String	contains(s, sub) -> bool	Check if string contains substring
format	String	format(template, args...) -> string	Format string with placeholders
table	Tables	table(columns) -> table	Create table from column map
csv	Tables	csv(path, opts?) -> table	Read CSV file into table
select	Tables	select(tbl, cols...) -> table	Select columns from table
mutate	Tables	mutate(tbl, name, fn) -> table	Add or modify column
left_join	Tables	left_join(a, b, on) -> table	Left join two tables
pivot_wider	Tables	pivot_wider(tbl, names, vals) -> table	Pivot from long to wide format
matrix	Matrix	matrix(rows) -> matrix	Create matrix from nested lists
matmul	Matrix	matmul(a, b) -> matrix	Matrix multiplication
pca	Matrix	pca(mat, n_components) -> map	Principal Component Analysis
sparse_matrix	Sparse	sparse_matrix(entries, r, c) -> sparse	Create sparse matrix from triplets
log1p_cpm	Sparse	log1p_cpm(mat) -> sparse	log(1 + CPM) normalization for scRNA-seq
regex_match	Regex	regex_match(s, pattern) -> bool	Test if pattern matches string
regex_captures	Regex	regex_captures(s, pattern) -> list	Extract capture groups
json_parse	JSON	json_parse(s) -> value	Parse JSON string
json_keys	JSON	json_keys(value) -> list	Get keys from a JSON object
now	DateTime	now() -> datetime	Current date and time
date_diff	DateTime	date_diff(a, b, unit) -> int	Difference between two dates
verify_checksum	Hash	verify_checksum(path, expected, algorithm?) -> bool	Verify file checksum (MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256)
sketch	Hash	sketch(sequence, k, sketch_size) -> list	MinHash sketch for sequence similarity
read_text	Filesystem	read_text(path) -> string	Read file contents as string
glob	Filesystem	glob(pattern) -> list	Find files matching glob pattern
http_get	HTTP	http_get(url, opts?) -> response	HTTP GET request
bio_fetch	HTTP	bio_fetch(db, id) -> map	Fetch record from biological database
sparkline	Viz	sparkline(data) -> string	Unicode sparkline chart
boxplot	Viz	boxplot(data, opts?) -> string	ASCII boxplot
plot	Plotting	plot(data, opts?) -> svg	Generic plot dispatcher
heatmap	Plotting	heatmap(mat, opts?) -> svg	Heatmap from matrix data
volcano	Plotting	volcano(tbl, opts?) -> svg	Volcano plot for DE analysis
manhattan	Bio Plots	manhattan(tbl, opts?) -> svg	Manhattan plot for GWAS
circos	Bio Plots	circos(tracks, opts?) -> svg	Circos plot for genomic data
cell_embedding	Bio Plots	cell_embedding(coords, labels) -> svg	UMAP/tSNE cell embedding plot
container_run	Containers	container_run(image, cmd, opts?) -> map	Run command in container
biocontainer	Containers	biocontainer(tool, cmd) -> map	Run BioContainers tool
chat	LLM	chat(prompt, opts?) -> string	Send prompt to LLM
llm_models	LLM	llm_models() -> list	List available LLM models
s3_download	Transfer	s3_download(bucket, key, path) -> string	Download from S3
sra_fastq	Transfer	sra_fastq(accession, outdir) -> list	Download FASTQ from SRA
par_map	Advanced	par_map(list, fn, threads?) -> list	Parallel map across threads
provenance	Advanced	provenance(value) -> map	Get data provenance/lineage

Browse by Category

Core

17 functions — print, len, type, range, casting

Collections & HOFs

24 functions — map, filter, reduce, sort, zip

Math & Statistics

25 functions — mean, stdev, ttest, sqrt, log

String Operations

18 functions — split, join, replace, format

Matrix

18 functions — matmul, svd, pca, eigenvalues

Sparse Matrix

9 functions — sparse ops, log1p_cpm, tfidf

Regex

6 functions — match, find, replace, captures

JSON

6 functions — parse, stringify, read, path

DateTime

7 functions — now, format, parse, add, diff

HTTP & Network

10 functions — get, post, download, bio_fetch

ASCII Plots

8 functions — sparkline, bar_chart, boxplot

SVG Plots

14 functions — scatter, heatmap, volcano

Bio Plots

21 functions — manhattan, circos, oncoprint

Containers

5 functions — container_run, container_pull, tool_search, tool_info, tool_pull

LLM Chat

5 functions — chat, analyze, code, config

Advanced

20 functions — par_map, spawn, provenance

New in recent releases: additional sequence utilities, expanded sparse matrix ops, and new bio plot types bring the total to 750+ functions. Check the individual category pages for the latest additions.