Builtins

Ideas for what built-ins mo will expose and how basic functionality will be constructed on top of this.

Types

Built-in types (int, float, …) are only storage types − they don’t even have operators. E.g.

lang.int i;
lang.set (i, lang.add (i, 5));

Typeof: return a “Type”, suitible for declaring a variable with.

Need two variants: typeof container and typeof contained value? The latter may be runtime, but if the returned type is used in a template/metacode, it must be known at compile-time.

Builtin keywords can roughly fall into two categories:

  1. those derivable

  2. those not

  3. Derivable expressions

    These are all expressions which could be encapsulated in a function to perform the same purpose. I propose they be part of the lang or language namespace; hence most would not be used directly.

    • if
    • goto / flow control: derived as for, foreach, while … do …, etc.
    • operators - required in some form, but how, e.g. would the builtin = operator normally be used or a derived one?

  4. Non-derivable expressions

    These can’t really be wrapped by functions - at least I don’t imagine usefully, and allowing it would complicate parsing.

    • import
    • alias (for types, functions and variables)
    • typedef (although not really different than creating a struct, once optimised)
    • struct, class, object (whichever keywords get used)

Copyright © Diggory Hardy 2009-2010.

Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying file licences/BOOST_1_0.txt or copy at http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt)