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wren/syntax.html
2019-10-03 06:50:59 +00:00

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<h1><a href="./">wren</a></h1>
<h2>a classy little scripting language</h2>
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<li><a href="getting-started.html">Getting Started</a></li>
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<li><a href="syntax.html">Syntax</a></li>
<li><a href="values.html">Values</a></li>
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<li><a href="method-calls.html">Method Calls</a></li>
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<li><a href="variables.html">Variables</a></li>
<li><a href="functions.html">Functions</a></li>
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<li><a href="error-handling.html">Error Handling</a></li>
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<h2>reference</h2>
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<td colspan="2"><h2>guides</h2></td>
<td><h2>reference</h2></td>
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<li><a href="syntax.html">Syntax</a></li>
<li><a href="values.html">Values</a></li>
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<main>
<h2>Syntax</h2>
<p>Wren&rsquo;s syntax is designed to be familiar to people coming from C-like languages
while being a bit simpler and more streamlined. </p>
<p>Scripts are stored in plain text files with a <code>.wren</code> file extension. Wren does
not compile ahead of time: programs are run directly from source, from top to
bottom like a typical scripting language. (Internally, programs are compiled to
bytecode for <a href="performance.html">efficiency</a>, but that&rsquo;s an implementation detail.) </p>
<h2>Comments <a href="#comments" name="comments" class="header-anchor">#</a></h2>
<p>Line comments start with <code>//</code> and end at the end of the line:</p>
<div class="codehilite"><pre><span class="c1">// This is a comment.</span>
</pre></div>
<p>Block comments start with <code>/*</code> and end with <code>*/</code>. They can span multiple lines: </p>
<div class="codehilite"><pre><span class="cm">/* This </span>
<span class="cm"> is </span>
<span class="cm"> a </span>
<span class="cm"> multi-line </span>
<span class="cm"> comment. */</span>
</pre></div>
<p>Unlike C, block comments can nest in Wren: </p>
<div class="codehilite"><pre><span class="cm">/* This is /* a nested */ comment. */</span>
</pre></div>
<p>This is handy because it lets you easily comment out an entire block of code,
even if the code already contains block comments. </p>
<h2>Reserved words <a href="#reserved-words" name="reserved-words" class="header-anchor">#</a></h2>
<p>One way to get a quick feel for a language&rsquo;s style is to see what words it
reserves. Here&rsquo;s what Wren has: </p>
<div class="codehilite"><pre><span class="k">break</span> <span class="k">class</span> <span class="k">construct</span> <span class="k">else</span> <span class="kc">false</span> <span class="k">for</span> <span class="k">foreign</span> <span class="k">if</span> <span class="k">import</span>
<span class="k">in</span> <span class="k">is</span> <span class="kc">null</span> <span class="k">return</span> <span class="k">static</span> <span class="k">super</span> <span class="nb">this</span> <span class="kc">true</span> <span class="k">var</span> <span class="k">while</span>
</pre></div>
<h2>Identifiers <a href="#identifiers" name="identifiers" class="header-anchor">#</a></h2>
<p>Naming rules are similar to other programming languages. Identifiers start with
a letter or underscore and may contain letters, digits, and underscores. Case
is sensitive. </p>
<div class="codehilite"><pre><span class="n">hi</span>
<span class="n">camelCase</span>
<span class="vg">PascalCase</span>
<span class="vi">_under_score</span>
<span class="n">abc123</span>
<span class="vg">ALL_CAPS</span>
</pre></div>
<p>Identifiers that start with underscore (<code>_</code>) are special in Wren. They are used
to indicate <a href="classes.html#fields">fields</a> in classes. </p>
<h2>Newlines <a href="#newlines" name="newlines" class="header-anchor">#</a></h2>
<p>Newlines (<code>\n</code>) are meaningful in Wren. They are used to separate statements: </p>
<div class="codehilite"><pre><span class="c1">// Two statements:</span>
<span class="vg">System</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">&quot;hi&quot;</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c1">// Newline.</span>
<span class="vg">System</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">&quot;bye&quot;</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
<p>Sometimes, though, a statement doesn&rsquo;t fit on a single line and jamming a
newline in the middle would trip it up. To handle that, Wren has a very simple
rule: It ignores a newline following any token that can&rsquo;t end a statement. </p>
<div class="codehilite"><pre><span class="vg">System</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">print</span><span class="p">(</span> <span class="c1">// Newline here is ignored.</span>
<span class="s">&quot;hi&quot;</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
<p>In practice, this means you can put each statement on its own line and wrap
them across lines as needed without too much trouble. </p>
<h2>Blocks <a href="#blocks" name="blocks" class="header-anchor">#</a></h2>
<p>Wren uses curly braces to define <em>blocks</em>. You can use a block anywhere a
statement is allowed, like in <a href="control-flow.html">control flow</a> statements.
<a href="classes.html#methods">Method</a> and <a href="functions.html">function</a> bodies are also
blocks. For example, here we have a block for the then case, and a single
statement for the else: </p>
<div class="codehilite"><pre><span class="k">if</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="n">happy</span> <span class="o">&amp;&amp;</span> <span class="n">knowIt</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="p">{</span>
<span class="n">hands</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">clap</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="p">}</span> <span class="k">else</span> <span class="vg">System</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">&quot;sad&quot;</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
<p>Blocks have two similar but not identical forms. Typically, blocks contain a
series of statements like: </p>
<div class="codehilite"><pre><span class="p">{</span>
<span class="vg">System</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">&quot;one&quot;</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="vg">System</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">&quot;two&quot;</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="vg">System</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">&quot;three&quot;</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="p">}</span>
</pre></div>
<p>Blocks of this form when used for method and function bodies automatically
return <code>null</code> after the block has completed. If you want to return a different
value, you need an explicit <code>return</code> statement. </p>
<p>However, it&rsquo;s pretty common to have a method or function that just evaluates and
returns the result of a single expression. Some other languages use <code>=&gt;</code> to
define these. Wren uses: </p>
<div class="codehilite"><pre><span class="p">{</span> <span class="s">&quot;single expression&quot;</span> <span class="p">}</span>
</pre></div>
<p>If there is no newline after the <code>{</code> (or after the parameter list in a
<a href="functions.html">function</a>), then the block may only contain a single
expression, and it automatically returns the result of it. It&rsquo;s exactly the same
as doing: </p>
<div class="codehilite"><pre><span class="p">{</span>
<span class="k">return</span> <span class="s">&quot;single expression&quot;</span>
<span class="p">}</span>
</pre></div>
<p>Statements are not allowed in this form (since they don&rsquo;t produce values), which
means nothing starting with <code>class</code>, <code>for</code>, <code>if</code>, <code>import</code>, <code>return</code>,
<code>var</code>, or <code>while</code>. If you want a block that contains a single statement,
put a newline in there: </p>
<div class="codehilite"><pre><span class="p">{</span>
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="n">happy</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="p">{</span>
<span class="vg">System</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">&quot;I&#39;m feelin&#39; it!&quot;</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="p">}</span>
<span class="p">}</span>
</pre></div>
<p>Using an initial newline after the <code>{</code> does feel a little weird or magical, but
newlines are already significant in Wren, so it&rsquo;s not totally crazy. The nice
thing about this syntax as opposed to something like <code>=&gt;</code> is that the <em>end</em> of
the block has an explicit delimiter. That helps when chaining: </p>
<div class="codehilite"><pre><span class="n">numbers</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">map</span> <span class="p">{</span><span class="o">|</span><span class="err">n</span><span class="o">|</span> <span class="err">n</span> <span class="o">*</span> <span class="mi">2</span> <span class="p">}</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">where</span> <span class="p">{</span><span class="o">|</span><span class="err">n</span><span class="o">|</span> <span class="err">n</span> <span class="o">&lt;</span> <span class="mi">100</span> <span class="p">}</span>
</pre></div>
<h2>Precedence and Associativity <a href="#precedence-and-associativity" name="precedence-and-associativity" class="header-anchor">#</a></h2>
<p>We&rsquo;ll talk about Wren&rsquo;s different expression forms and what they mean in the
next few pages. But if you want to see how they interact with each other
grammatically, here&rsquo;s the whole table. </p>
<p>It shows which expressions have higher <em>precedence</em>&mdash;which ones bind more
tightly than others&mdash;and their <em>associativity</em>&mdash;how a series of the
same kind of expression is ordered. Wren mostly follows C, except that it fixes
<a href="http://www.lysator.liu.se/c/dmr-on-or.html">the bitwise operator mistake</a>. The full precedence table, from
tightest to loosest, is: </p>
<table class="precedence">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Prec</th>
<th>Operator</th>
<th>Description</th>
<th>Associates</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td><code>()</code> <code>[]</code> <code>.</code></td>
<td>Grouping, <a href="method-calls.html">Subscript, Method call</a></td>
<td>Left</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td><code>-</code> <code>!</code> <code>~</code></td>
<td><a href="method-calls.html#operators">Negate, Not, Complement</a></td>
<td>Right</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>3</td>
<td><code>*</code> <code>/</code> <code>%</code></td>
<td><a href="method-calls.html#operators">Multiply, Divide, Modulo</a></td>
<td>Left</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>4</td>
<td><code>+</code> <code>-</code></td>
<td><a href="method-calls.html#operators">Add, Subtract</a></td>
<td>Left</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>5</td>
<td><code>..</code> <code>...</code></td>
<td><a href="method-calls.html#operators">Inclusive range, Exclusive range</a></td>
<td>Left</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>6</td>
<td><code>&lt;&lt;</code> <code>&gt;&gt;</code></td>
<td><a href="method-calls.html#operators">Left shift, Right shift</a></td>
<td>Left</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>7</td>
<td><code>&amp;</code></td>
<td><a href="method-calls.html#operators">Bitwise and</a></td>
<td>Left</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>8</td>
<td><code>^</code></td>
<td><a href="method-calls.html#operators">Bitwise xor</a></td>
<td>Left</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>9</td>
<td><code>|</code></td>
<td><a href="method-calls.html#operators">Bitwise or</a></td>
<td>Left</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>10</td>
<td><code>&lt;</code> <code>&lt;=</code> <code>&gt;</code> <code>&gt;=</code></td>
<td><a href="method-calls.html#operators">Comparison</a></td>
<td>Left</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>11</td>
<td><code>is</code></td>
<td><a href="method-calls.html#operators">Type test</a></td>
<td>Left</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>12</td>
<td><code>==</code> <code>!=</code></td>
<td><a href="method-calls.html#operators">Equals, Not equal</a></td>
<td>Left</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>13</td>
<td><code>&amp;&amp;</code></td>
<td><a href="control-flow.html#logical-operators">Logical and</a></td>
<td>Left</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>14</td>
<td><code>||</code></td>
<td><a href="control-flow.html#logical-operators">Logical or</a></td>
<td>Left</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>15</td>
<td><code>?:</code></td>
<td><a href="control-flow.html#the-conditional-operator-">Conditional</a></td>
<td>Right</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>16</td>
<td><code>=</code></td>
<td><a href="variables.html#assignment">Assignment</a>, <a href="method-calls.html#setters">Setter</a></td>
<td>Right</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><br><hr>
<a class="right" href="values.html">Values &rarr;</a>
<a href="getting-started.html">&larr; Getting Started</a> </p>
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<a href="http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/">Bob Nystrom</a> and
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