Primitive Types and Literals¶

Quxlang uses explicit-width primitive names:

VAR condition BOOL := TRUE;
VAR octet BYTE := 255;
VAR signed_value I32 := 0 - 7;
VAR unsigned_value U128 := 340282366920938463463374607431768211455;
VAR unusual_width U24 := 16777215;
VAR real_value F32 := 1.5;
VAR element_count SZ := 4;
VAR raw_address ADDRESS;
VAR ordering ORDER := ORDER::EQUAL;
VAR text STRING_CONSTANT := "hello";
VAR number NUMERIC_CONSTANT := 42;

Numeric types¶

I<N> and U<N> are signed and unsigned integers with N bits.
F32 and F64 use their standard exponent widths.
Other floating layouts use F<N>E<M>, where M is the exponent width.
SZ and UINTPTR are pointer-sized unsigned integer forms.
BYTE is distinct from U8.

Nonstandard floating layouts are target-dependent. The current LLVM backend, for example, supports this guarded declaration:

STATIC_IF(BACKEND_LLVM)
{
  VAR custom_float F16E5 := 1.5;
}

Other built-in types¶

BOOL, ADDRESS, TYPE_INDEX, ORDER, VOID, and NULL_TYPE are distinct built-in types. STRING_CONSTANT, CSTRING_CONSTANT, DATA_CONSTANT, and NUMERIC_CONSTANT are compile-time constant categories rather than ordinary runtime string or number containers.

Literal values¶

Source literals include decimal integers, floating-point values, characters, strings, TRUE, FALSE, and NULL. UNSPECIFIED requests unspecified initial state where the target type permits it.

Numeric and string literals retain their literal identity until context chooses a destination. The type-symbol forms used for exact and deduced literal matching are:

Form	Meaning
`NUMERIC_LITERAL_TYPE("42")`	The exact numeric literal `42`
`NUMERIC_LITERAL_ANY(name)`	Any numeric literal, bound as `name`
`STRING_LITERAL_TYPE("text")`	The exact string literal `"text"`
`STRING_LITERAL_ANY(name)`	Any string literal, bound as `name`

The *_ANY(name) forms are template-matching patterns rather than runtime container types.

Read-only constant categories¶

STRING_CONSTANT and NUMERIC_CONSTANT preserve computed compile-time data in a form that may be embedded in an output:

::message STATIC STRING_CONSTANT := "hello";
::number STATIC NUMERIC_CONSTANT := 42;

::constant_access STATIC_TEST
{
  ASSERT(message.END() - message.BEGIN() == 5);
}

STRING_CONSTANT, CSTRING_CONSTANT, DATA_CONSTANT, and NUMERIC_CONSTANT are read-only byte-span categories with built-in BEGIN() and END() access. Only the conversions supplied for a category are valid; in particular, these names do not denote mutable runtime string or byte-vector containers.

The exact token forms and escape sequences are documented on Lexical structure. Numeric conversion rules are covered on Conversions.