Values

Values

Values are just a fancy term for data - in fact, most of what programs do is to manipulate data, to compute numbers from other numbers, to process strings, etc.

The type of nothing is Void, based on C’s void type.

Numbers

There are two classes of numbers built into the language. Integers, like 3, -45 or 124_500, and reals, like 3.14 or -0.124_325_963. Underscores in number literals are ignored, thus they are purely cosmetic, allowing numbers to be expressed in code in a more human-friendly way.

Integer types

There are fixed-length integer types, like:

ooc types	Width
Int8, UInt8	8
Int16, UInt16	16
Int32, UInt32	32
Int64, UInt64	64

And others, mapped on C types:

ooc types	C types	Width
Char, UChar	signed char, unsigned char	8
Short, UShort	signed short, unsigned short	at least 16
Int, UInt	signed int, unsigned int	at least 16
Long, ULong	signed long, unsigned long	at least 32
LLong, ULLong	signed long long, unsigned long long	at least 32

There are several type of integer literals. Decimal literals are the most common, but octal, hexadecimal, and binary literals exist as well, for example:

75 // decimal
0c113 // octal
0x4b // hexadecimal
0b1001011 // binary

Floating point types

Similarly, real number types are based on C types:

ooc types	C types	Width
Float	float	32
Double	double	64
Double	double	64
LDouble	long double	64, 80, 96

Integer Ranges

Any two values of integer type separated by two dots is a range. For example, this prints “Hello” ten times:

for (i in 0..10) {
    // i takes values from 0 to 9
    "Hello" println()
}

Text

Characters

A character in ooc is akin to a byte, it’s not a Unicode character. A character literal is enclosed in single quotes, and supports the following escape codes:

'a' // regular character
'\\' // literal backslash
'\'' // single quote
'\n' // new line
'\r' // carriage return
'\b' // backspace
'\t' // horizontal tab
'\f' // form feed
'\a' // alert (bell)
'\v' // vertical tab
'\nnn' // character with octal value nnn
'\xhh' // character with hexadecimal value hh

Multi-character literals are syntax errors, e.g. 'abcd' is invalid.

The ooc type Char is based on the C type char.

Strings

There are two types of strings in ooc. CString is a cover from Char* and is a vanilla C string, null-terminated. String is a class that contains a length and may be implemented however the implementor chooses.

A string literal is enclosed in double quotes, gives an ooc String, and supports the following escape codes:

"a" // regular character
"\\" // literal backslash
"\"" // double quote
"\n" // new line
"\r" // carriage return
"\b" // backspace
"\t" // horizontal tab
"\f" // form feed
"\a" // alert (bell)
"\v" // vertical tab
"\nnn" // character with octal value nnn
"\xhh" // character with hexadecimal value hh

String interpolation

ooc’s string interpolation syntax is inspired by Ruby’s:

"Hello, my name is #{name} and I am #{age} years old." println()

Numeric and stringy types are handled correctly by interpolated strings. For all other types, a toString() call is added. Object types that do not have a toString() method, when used in an interpolated string, will trigger a compile error.

Raw strings

A raw string literal is enclosed in double quotes and preceded by c without spaces, for example this will be of type CString, not String:

puts(c"Some like em raw.")

Raw strings can be used to avoid extra allocations. One would hope that one day compilers would be smart enough to avoid that on their own, but in the meantime, one could roll their own implementations using only raw strings.

Variables

A value can also be simply a variable declaration or a variable access, for example:

a := "Hello" // this evaluates to "Hello"
a // so does this

The := operator is the declare-assign operator. It creates a new variable slot, infers its type from the right-hand-side value, and assigns the value to the variable. The same code can be rewritten like so:

a: String = "Hello" // this evaluates to "Hello"
a // this too

Or, in even longer form:

a: String
a = "Hello" // this evaluates to "Hello"
a // this too

The same applies inside a class declaration:

Dog: class {
  age := 23

  init: func {
    age // this evalutes to 23
  }
}

dog := Dog new()
dog age // this evalutes to 23 as well

Functions

Functions are values as well. For example:

Dog: class {
  bark: func { "Woof!" println() }
}

Dog bark // this is a value
a := func { "Waf" println() } // this is a value as well
a // and so is this

Functions are of type Func. Its syntax resembles a function definition. For example, Func (Int, Int) -> Int is the type of a function that takes two integers and returns an integer. Both the argument list and the return type are optional.

Pointers

Pointers are references to a region of memory. For example,

Dog: class {
  age := 23
}

dog := Dog new()
age := dog age
age = 23 // `dog age` is still 23

agePtr := dog age&
agePtr@ = 42 // `dog age` is now 42

Post-fixing with & takes the address of something. Post-fixing with @ returns the value a pointer points to.

The type of a pointer is Type* where Type is the underlying type, for example, Int* is a pointer to an Int. To accept or return any kind of pointer, the catch-all Pointer type can be used.

References

References are a variant of pointers especially useful in functions.

Here’s a mul2 function with pointers:

mul2: func (var: Int*) {
  var@ *= 2
}

a := 12
mul2(a&)
a // now evalutes to 24

And here’s the same with references:

mul2: func (var: Int@) {
  var *= 2
}

a := 12
mul2(a&)
a // now evalutes to 24

Notice that the function still neds to be called with a pointer, in this case a&. This is so that the caller is aware that the variable being passed might be modified by the function.

However, inside the body of a function using a by-reference parameter, there is no need to dereference it (postfix it @) every time it is being accessed or assigned.

Covers vs Classes

Objects are references, like in Java. For example, the following:

Container: class {
  value := 19
}

modify: func (c: Container) {
  c value = 23
}

c := Container new()
modify(c)
c value // now evalutes to 23

However, covers are passed by value, see:

Container: cover {
  value: Int
}

modify: func (c: Container) {
  // woops, we're modifying a copy of the original
  c value = 23
}

c: Container
c value = 19
modify(c)
c value // still evalutes to 19

The same applies inside methods of covers - by default, they apply to a copy of the cover. To be able to modify the content of a cover, use func@ instead.

Container: cover {
  value: Int
  setValue: func@ (.value) {
    // since we're using `func@`, `this` is a reference
    this value = value
  }
}

Hence, any cover constructor should be defined with func@, like so:

Container: cover {
  value: Int
  init: func@ (=value)
}

Enums

By default, enums are backed by Ints. However, that’s transparent. A value from an enum will be of the type of the enum. See:

// defining a new type named 'State'
State: enum {
  // .. with two possible values
  AWAKE
  ASLEEP
}

// currentState is of type 'State'
currentState := State AWAKE

// only accepts values of type 'State'
isAsleep?: func (s: State) -> Bool {
  (s == State ASLEEP)
}