FAUST : an Efficient Functional Approach to DSP Programming

FAUST is a programming language that provides a purely functional approach to signal processing while offering a high level of performance. FAUST aims at being complementary to existing audio languages by offering a viable and efficient alternative to C/C++ to develop signal processing libraries, audio plug-ins or standalone applications. The language is based on a simple and well defined formal semantics. A FAUST program denotes a signal processor, a mathematical function that transforms input signals into output signals. Being able to know precisely what a program computes is important not only for programmers, but also for compilers needing to generate the best possible code. Moreover these semantics questions are crucial for the long term preservation of music programs. The following paragraphs will give an overview of the language as well as a description of the compiler, including the generation of parallel code.