the
Nit
Programming Language

a fun language for serious programming

Basic Types

Object

Nit is a full object language. Every value is an instance of a class. Even the basic types described in this section.

Object is the root of the class hierarchy. All other classes, including the basic ones, are a specialization of Object.

Classes, methods and operators presented in this section are defined in the standard Nit library that is implicitly imported by every module. Many other classes and methods are also defined in the standard library. Please look at the specific standard library documentation for all details.

Int and Float

1, -1 are Int literals, and 1.0, -0.1 are Float literals. Standard arithmetic operators are available with a common precedence rules: *, /, and % (modulo) ; then + and -. Some operators can be composed with the assignment (=).

var i = 5
i += 2
print i # outputs 7

Conversion from Int to Float and Float to Int must be done with the to_f and to_i methods.

String

Literal strings are enclosed within quotes ("). To insert a value inside a literal string, include the values inside braces ({}). Braces have to be escaped. + is the concatenation operator, but is less efficient than the brace form.

var j = 5
print "j{j}; j1{j+1}" # outputs "j5; j16"

Common escaping sequences are available (\", \n, \t, etc.) plus the escaped brace \{.

print "hel"lonwo{rld"
# outputs `hel"lo` on a first line
# and `wo{rld` on a second line

Multi-line strings are enclosed with triple quotes ("""). Values are inserted with triple braces ({{{value}}}). The multi-line form thus allows verbatim new-lines, quotes and braces

print """some text
with line breaks
and characters like " and {
but {{{ 1+2 }}} is rendered as 3
"""

All objects have a to_s method that converts the object to a String. print is a top-level method that takes any number of arguments and prints them to the standard output. print always adds a newline to the output, another top-level method, printn, does not add a newline.

var x: String
x = 5.to_s # -> the String "5"
print x # outputs "5"

Bool

true and false are the only two Bool values. Standard Boolean operators are available with the standard precedence rule: not; then and; then or.

Common comparison operators are available: == and != on all objects; <, >, <=, >= and <=> on Comparable objects (which include Int, String and others).

  • ==, <, >, <=, >= and <=> are standard Nit operators thus are redefinable.

  • and, or and not are not standard Nit operators: they are not redefinable, also they are lazy and have adaptive typing flow effects.

  • == is not for reference equality but for value equality (like equals in Java). There is a special reference equality operator, is, but it cannot be redefined and its usage is not recommended. Note that while == is redefinable, it has a special adaptive typing flow effect when used with null.

  • != is not a standard Nit operator. In fact x != y is syntactically equivalent to not x == y.

Array

Array is a generic class, thus Array[Int] denotes an array of integers and Array[Array[Bool]] denotes an array of array of Booleans. Literal arrays can be declared with the bracket notation ([]). Empty arrays can also be instantiated with the new keyword and elements added with the add method. Elements can be retrieved or stored with the bracket operator.

var a = [1, 2, 3, 4] # A literal array of integers
print a.join(":") # outputs "1:2:3:4"
var b = new Array[Int] # A new empty array of integers
b.add(10)
b.add_all(a)
b.add(20)
print b[0] # outputs "10"
print b.length # outputs "6"
b[1] = 30
print b.join(", ") # outputs "10, 30, 2, 3, 4, 20"

Note that the type of literal arrays is deduced using the static type combination rule.

Range

Range is also a generic class but accepts only Discrete types (Int is discrete). There are two kinds of literal ranges, the open one [1..5[ that excludes the last element, and the closed one [1..5] that includes it.

print([1..5[.join(":")) # outputs "1:2:3:4"
print([1..5].join(":")) # outputs "1:2:3:4:5"

Ranges are mainly used in for loops.

HashMap

HashMap is a generic class that associates keys with values. There is no literal hashmap, therefore the new keyword is used to create an empty HashMap and the bracket operators are used to store and retrieve values.

var h = new HashMap[String, Int]
# h associates strings to integers
h["six"] = 6
print h["six"] + 1 # outputs "7"