Types

Primitive data types

Primitive data type are the building blocks of which other more complex types are derived from. Each primitive type has the following 3 attributes:

  1. Type: Indicates the name for the type
  2. Width: How many bits it takes up
  3. Intended interpretation: How it should be interpreted

Integral types

Type Width Intended interpretation
byte 8 signed byte (two’s complement)
ubyte 8 unsigned byte
short 16 signed short (two’s complement)
ushort 16 unsigned short
int 32 signed int (two’s complement)
uint 32 unsigned int
long 64 signed long (two’s complement)
ulong 64 unsigned long

Decimal

TODO: Add this

Rules

There are a few rules that the type system abides by and which one should know about when dealing with types in T.

No explicit conversion

There is no automatic conversion in TLang, therefore one must explicitly cast. An example of this is that if one has a function of type uint and returns an expression of type ubyte (say now return myByte where myByte is a ubyte-typed variable) then it will still not automatically convert it for you, you would be required to do a cast(uint) as such:

ubyte myByte = 255;

uint function()
{
    return cast(uint)myByte;
}

This is seen as a benefit as one always knows what they are doing at any time with the type-system by having to conciosuly cast data in such a manner.

Literals

There is one case whereby automatic conversion (known as “coercion”) is applied and that is with the usage of numeric literals. Firstly, however, we must discuss the default encoding scheme…. (TODO: do this)

TODO: Add information about how literals are ranged checked and then coercion applies (this is the ONLY case were coercion applies)

To-type | Provided-type |

  1. TODO: Sign/zero extension
  2. Promotion?
  3. Precedence in interpretation when the first two don’t apply