Welcome Syntaxes Pattern Matching Building and Compiling Compiler Interstricts

Syntax

This page will go into the ashen's syntax.

It is not that different!

Ashen has C-style if-else statements, do-while loops, Haxe style switch statements (break not mandatory), but with a few caveats

Ternaries are not C-like.

var value = true ? 4 : 2; // Error!

var value = if (true) then 4 else 2; // Okay!

For-loops are unique.

var array = [4, 3, 2];

// Will iterate from 0 all the way to array.length - 1, 
// aka 'for (int i = 0; i < array.length; i++)'
for (i in 0 < array.length) {
}

// You can invert the direction!
// this will iterate from array.length - 1 all the way to 0. 
// aka 'for (int i = array.length - 1; i >= 0; i--)'
for (i in array.length > 0) {
}

// Looking for a for-each like in Haxe? you can do that too!
for (elm in array) {
}

WITCH WARNING:In languages like JavaScript, using for-each is slower than for i = 0; i < [length], but in ashen, doing any for-each statement will generate nearly identical iteration code, it is just that Ashen for-each statements also index the array while iterating, you do not have to fear performance problems between a for-each and numeric range for-loops.

Variables

Through ashen's type inference, you can define variables in more than one way, you are not mandated to initialize or define the type of a variable immediately, although, variables with unknown types will result in compilation errors.

// Like in golang, you can define both an explicit type and an assignment.
var fullyDefined : Int = 4;

// Not going to assign it yet? no worries!
var valueless : Int; // will be automatically 0, and not garbage.

// Or omit the type!
var infered = 4; // infered is a : Int 

// Going to assign it later? also no worries!
var waitingProcessing; // = 0;

if (...) {
  waitingProcessing = 90;
}
// waitingProcessing will now be of type Int!

WITCH WARNING:If no explicit type is set (e.g defining the type directly), if assigned to null, will result in said variable having the next type being nullable, example: var r /* : B? */ = null; r = B {...}; /*r will be a B?*/

About the other statements

Ashen if-statements are identical to C, with the exception of Pattern Matching in their condition.

if (condition) {
  // statement
}

// You can also omit the context (scope) if you dont want to:
if (condition)
  // statement

// Pattern matching (see link above)
if (fruit instanceof Banana then banana) {
  ...
}

// ..you can omit scopes pretty much in any statement.

Ashen while and do-while loops are also identical, except you can add an else clasule to while loops:

// Normal while loop
while (condition) {
  // statement
}

// Do-while (run first, loop again if true)
do {

} while (condition);

// While loop with else
while (condition) {

} else { // This else will run if condition is false when entering the while loop.
 
}

Ashen switches are nowhere like Cs, syntax-wise? they are identical, but in Ashen, cases will by default always create a scope, and ashen will always put a default break (so it wont be looping forever like in other languages when no case is matched.)

switch (target) {
      case EXPR:
          var p = 4; // P is isolated to this case statement
      
          // no need for break;
      
      // You can also match multiple cases
      case THREE:
      case FIVE:
        printString("Prime number!");

      // Default is not mandatory:
      // default: (OK)
}

Unlike C, switch statements do not require their cases to be constants or known at compile time. (it is better if you use compile time values, but its fine otherwise.)

This also means you can use strings in Ashen switches!

switch (name) {
  case "miyuki":
    printString("Hey look its me!");
  case "suisei":
    printString("Favorite singer, yes");
  case "alvorada":
    printString("Liar, scammer, but funny");
  case "amd":
    printString("Some x86 CPU company i think");
  
  default: 
    printString("Who is that?");
}

Arrays

The syntax is a mixture of java and JS, you can either use a array literal, or instance an array by size:

// Array literal
var primeNumbers = [2, 3, 5, 7];

// Create an array with initial length:
// Note: you can use the 'alloc' keyword instead of 'new' if you want.
// The alloc keyword comes from the early days of ashen, there is no functional difference between both keywords.

var empty = new Int[40];

WITCH WARNING:Note: ashen does not have fixed-size arrays, it is simillar in mechanic to arrays in JavaScript. Please do not use the type for C Nullterminated arrays (e.g Type[<size]) as fixed size arrays unless you are working with embedded or bare metal projects.

About operator overloading

Ashen does not provide any standard way for operator overloading, this feature is specifically reserved for the compiler and LibNebula.

The reason for operator overloading not being a proper feature in ashen, is because of the problems it creates, mostly readability wise. If you did a << b, you expect a and b to be numeric values where a is being shifted by B bits, but with operator overloading, this very well could be that A is a stream and B is some buffer.

But, if you really want operator overloading.. you can only overload array indexing, through get() and set() with a @AshenInternal Rune. but I do not recomend this as it often leads to problems and warnings (As AshenInternal is well, internal.)

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