Types, Built‐in Types, and Literals

Types, Built-in Types, and Literals

Built-in Types

Type	Description
i8 i16 i32 i64 i128 i256	Signed integers (sizes not supported in hardware are software-emulated; on very small targets, types wider than 4 bytes may not be available at all)
u8 u16 u32 u64 u128 u256	Unsigned integers
r16	IEEE 754 binary16 (GPU half)
r32 r64 r128	IEEE floats (r128 software-emulated)
dec	Fixed-point, 32 + 32 bits
byte	Alias of u8
int uns real	Target-dependent aliases, to force a specific size for global data or registers; not allowed in dfoot

• Native size: One compiler option sets the native size used by int / uns / real and by unsuffixed literals. It can force a size below or above the CPU's own.
• Numbers are not nullable unless declared type?.

3.2 Other Scalars

Type	Description
bool	true / false
char	32-bit Unicode code point
date	instant: 64-bit, ms since 1 Jan 1970 UTC; a null date is represented by the minimum i64 value
time	time of day, millisecond resolution; no date, no zone; stored as an i32 (ms since midnight, max 86,399,999); a null time is represented by -1
clock	u64 monotonic counter, 0.1 ns, from Clock(); intervals only; Clock() never returns 0; null = 0
lapse	difference between two dates or two clocks (Section 3.3)
addr	native type holding an address as a number; size from the target definition (64-bit by default, 16 on C64), stored in the most efficient way; comparison and transmute only, arithmetic through pointer methods; cannot be dereferenced; prints as hex in groups of 4 digits separated by spaces; null is 0 (unmapped address). Converting an addr to a pointer results in an unsafe pointer.

3.3 lapse

Used to show an elapsed time span. Signed 64-bit; raw value = value × 8 + code.

Code (bits 2-1-0)	Meaning	Range
000	null	—
010	date lapse, ms	±36 million years
011	clock lapse, 0.1 ns	±3.6 years
100	year lapse	beyond ±36M years
111	clock lapse overflow	—

• date − date → date lapse; clock − clock → clock lapse; date − clock → date lapse. date + time → date. date − time → date. time − time → date lapse.
• Mixed units convert to date lapse, rounding away from zero. Null propagates.
• Lapses format as numbers in their own unit.

3.4 Composite and Collection Types

Type	Description
arr<T>	Array: fixed size set at initialization (compile-time or runtime), contiguous; cannot grow or shrink
vec<T>	Vector: contiguous and growable (Rust Vec rules)
list<T>	Growable, counted B-tree, O(log n) insert/remove
map<K, V>	Sorted map (B-tree); alias bmap
hmap<K, V>	Hash map
set<T>	Sorted set (B-tree); alias bset
hset<T>	Hash set
Tuple	An ordered set of different types accessed by order and/or by name (must have at least 2 elements)
string	UTF-8 text
dfoot	Dflat Fast Open Objects Tree, used as serializable tree of objects (similar to JSON)

• GUID is defined by the EF layer, platform-specific.
• Lengths and default indexes are u64 everywhere.

Check Collections for the whole description.

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Number Literals

Literal	Type
123	native signed integer (64 bits on x64 arch, 32 bits on x32 archs, 8 bits on 8 bit archs)
123u	u32
123l	i64
123ul	u64
123s / 123us	i16 / u16
123b	byte (that is an alias of u8)
1.5	native real
1.5f, 2f	r32
6.022e23	native real
0x1F	hex; size = smallest type holding the digits (1–2 → 8 bit, 3–4 → 16, 5–8 → 32, 9–16 → 64), zero-filled, widened further if needed; signed; u suffix for unsigned
0b1010	binary, same rules as hex
1_000_000	_ digit separator

• Suffixes are case-insensitive.
• Unsuffixed literals take the native size of the target (or the size forced by the native-size compiler option). A value that doesn't fit takes the smallest wider type that does (300 on an 8-bit target → i16).
• Reals fit by range only (precision loss accepted). The target architecture decides the best native real format (for example r64 on 64-bit, r32 on 32-bit, r16 on 8- and 16-bit, or software emulation where faster).
• Literals adapt to the declared type; a value that doesn't fit is a compile error.
• 0x00000000DEADBEEF is a 64-bit value; hex and binary always describe raw bits.
• A literal transmuted to a pointer is zero-extended to the pointer size: [*i32]0xA0000.

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Characters and Strings

• Chars: 'a'. Strings: "text".
• Escapes: \n \r \t \\ \' \" \0, code points \u{1F600} (hex) and \#{123} (decimal).
• An invalid code point in a literal (surrogate, above 0x10FFFF) is a compile error.
• Interpolated strings: $"Hello {name}, total {x:D,02}"; \{ and \} for literal braces.
• "" and null are the same: a null string prints as nothing; string is already nullable, so string? is a compile error.

Check Strings for the whole description (layout, small and large strings, toStr()).