Symbols

Symbols (also known as variables) are used to store values. To declare a symbol, use the sym special form.

import "std/io.orb";

fnc main () () {
    sym (x (std.scanI32));
    std.println x;
};

Here we declare a symbol x and initialize it with an i32 value read from the standard input. In this case, the type of x will be equal to the type of its initialization value. Then, we print x to the standard output.

We can control the type of our symbol by specifying it after :. The initialization value will be implicitly cast to that type.

    sym (x:i64 (std.scanI32));

We can omit the initialization, but then we must specify the symbol’s type. This will zero-initialize our symbol.

    sym i:i32  # i is 0
        u:u32  # u is 0
        f:f32  # f is 0.0
        b:bool # b is false
        c:c8   # c is '\0'
        p:ptr; # p is null

Notice how a single sym instruction can be used to declare multiple symbols.