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variables and globals

TLDR

• catchall for global keywords/procs/types/etc not specified in other files
• anything like BLAH= can be written BLAH =
  • the former enables you to define/overload operators via 'proc woop=bloop: doop = toot'
• converts are listed here because their purpose is implicit type coercion
• additional type features are covered in structuredContainers.nim
• you can call clear on pretty much anything

links

• system vars
• typeinfo
• converters
• special types

TODOs

• blah.reset a thing to its default value

var

• runtime mutable global var

let

• runtime immutable

const

• compile-time evaluation cannot interface with C
• there is no compile-time foreign function interface at this time.
• consts must be initialized with a value
• declares variables whose values are constant expressions

static

• static represents a compile time entity, whether variable, block or type restriction
• staticT meta type representing all values that can be evaluated at compile time
• all static params are treated as generic params, thus may lead to executable bloat (see generics)

eval

• eval executes a block of code at compile time

stropping

• enable use of keywords as operators

auto

• auto only for proc return types and signature parameters
• parameter auto: creates an implicit generic of proc[x](a: x)
• return auto: causes the compiler to infer the type form the routine body

type casts

• cast operator forces the compiler to interpret a bit pattern to be of another type
• i.e. interpret the bit pattern as another type, but dont actually convert it to the other type
• only needed for low-level programming and are inherently unsafe

type coercions

• aka type conversions sometimes in docs, but always means coercion
  • type coercions preserve the abstract value, but not the bit-pattern
• allocCStringArray creates a null terminated cstringArray from
• chr(i): convert 0..255 to a char
• cstringArrayToSeq
• only widening (smaller > larger) conversions are automatic/implicit
• ord(i): convert char to an int
• parseInt/parseFloat from a string
• toFloat(int): convert int to a float
• toInt(float): convert float to an int
• toOpenArray
• toOpenArrayByte

type inspection

• type(x): retrieve the type of x, discouraged should use typeof
• typeof(x, mode = typeofIter): retrieve the type of x
• typeOfProc: retrieve the result of a proc, i.e. typeof x, typeOfProc
• TypeofMode: enumtypeofProc|typeofIter second param to typeof

echo/repr

• roughly equivalent to writeLine(stdout, x); flushFile(stdout)
• available for the JavaScript target too.
• cant be used with funcs/{.noSideEffect.} (use debugEcho)

important globals

• nimvm: true if current execution context is compile time