Daslang 0.6 Reference Manual

Copyright (c) 2018-2026 Gaijin Entertainment

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• 1. Introduction
  • 1.1. Performance.
  • 1.2. How it looks?
  • 1.3. Generic programming and type system
  • 1.4. Compilation time macros
  • 1.5. Features
• 2. The language
  • 2.1. Program Structure
    • 2.1.1. File Layout
    • 2.1.2. Module Declaration
    • 2.1.3. Require Declaration
    • 2.1.4. Options Declaration
    • 2.1.5. Top-Level Declarations
    • 2.1.6. Visibility
    • 2.1.7. Entry Points
    • 2.1.8. Expect Declaration
    • 2.1.9. Program vs. Module
    • 2.1.10. Execution Lifecycle
    • 2.1.11. Complete Example
  • 2.2. Lexical Structure
    • 2.2.1. Identifiers
    • 2.2.2. Keywords
    • 2.2.3. Operators
    • 2.2.4. Other Tokens
    • 2.2.5. Literals
    • 2.2.6. Comments
    • 2.2.7. Automatic Semicolons
  • 2.3. Values and Data Types
    • 2.3.1. Integer
    • 2.3.2. Float
    • 2.3.3. Bool
    • 2.3.4. String
    • 2.3.5. Type Conversion and Casting
    • 2.3.6. Table
    • 2.3.7. Array
    • 2.3.8. Struct
    • 2.3.9. Classes
    • 2.3.10. Variant
    • 2.3.11. Tuple
    • 2.3.12. Enumeration
    • 2.3.13. Bitfield
    • 2.3.14. Function
    • 2.3.15. Reference
    • 2.3.16. Pointers
    • 2.3.17. Smart Pointers
    • 2.3.18. Iterators
  • 2.4. Pointers
    • 2.4.1. Pointer types
    • 2.4.2. Creating pointers
    • 2.4.3. Dereferencing
    • 2.4.4. Null safety
    • 2.4.5. Deletion
    • 2.4.6. Pointer arithmetic
    • 2.4.7. Void pointers
    • 2.4.8. intptr
    • 2.4.9. reinterpret
    • 2.4.10. Type info
    • 2.4.11. Summary
  • 2.5. Constants, Enumerations, Global variables
    • 2.5.1. Constant
    • 2.5.2. Global variable
    • 2.5.3. Enumeration
  • 2.6. Statements
    • 2.6.1. Visibility Block
    • 2.6.2. Control Flow Statements
    • 2.6.3. Ranged Loops
    • 2.6.4. break
    • 2.6.5. continue
    • 2.6.6. return
    • 2.6.7. yield
    • 2.6.8. pass
    • 2.6.9. finally
    • 2.6.10. Local Variable Declarations
    • 2.6.11. assume
    • 2.6.12. with
    • 2.6.13. delete
    • 2.6.14. Function Declaration
    • 2.6.15. try/recover
    • 2.6.16. panic
    • 2.6.17. label and goto
    • 2.6.18. Expression Statement
    • 2.6.19. Global Variables
    • 2.6.20. enum
    • 2.6.21. typedef
  • 2.7. Expressions
    • 2.7.1. Assignment
    • 2.7.2. Operators
    • 2.7.3. Array Initializer
    • 2.7.4. Struct, Class, and Handled Type Initializer
    • 2.7.5. Tuple Initializer
    • 2.7.6. Variant Initializer
    • 2.7.7. Table Initializer
    • 2.7.8. default and new
    • 2.7.9. typeinfo
    • 2.7.10. String Interpolation
  • 2.8. Function
    • 2.8.1. Function declaration
    • 2.8.2. OOP-style calls
    • 2.8.3. Tail Recursion
    • 2.8.4. Operator Overloading
    • 2.8.5. Overloadable operators
    • 2.8.6. Unary operators
    • 2.8.7. Compound assignment operators
    • 2.8.8. Index operators
    • 2.8.9. Clone and finalize operators
    • 2.8.10. is, as, and ?as operators
    • 2.8.11. Null-coalesce operator
    • 2.8.12. Struct method operators
    • 2.8.13. Overloading the ‘.’ and ‘?.’ operators
    • 2.8.14. Overloading accessors
  • 2.9. Block
  • 2.10. Lambda
    • 2.10.1. Capture
    • 2.10.2. Iterators
    • 2.10.3. Implementation details
  • 2.11. Generator
    • 2.11.1. implementation details
  • 2.12. Struct
    • 2.12.1. Struct Declaration
    • 2.12.2. Structure Function Members
    • 2.12.3. Inheritance
    • 2.12.4. Alignment
    • 2.12.5. OOP implementation details
  • 2.13. Class
    • 2.13.1. Member Visibility
    • 2.13.2. Initializers
    • 2.13.3. Calling Parent Methods
    • 2.13.4. Runtime Type Checking (is)
    • 2.13.5. Type Casting (as, ?as)
    • 2.13.6. Class Templates
    • 2.13.7. Static methods with [class_method]
    • 2.13.8. Stack-Allocated Classes (using)
    • 2.13.9. Complete Example
    • 2.13.10. Implementation details
  • 2.14. Tuple
  • 2.15. Variant
    • 2.15.1. Alignment and data layout
  • 2.16. Bitfield
  • 2.17. Type Aliases
    • 2.17.1. typedef Declaration
    • 2.17.2. Publicity
    • 2.17.3. Shorthand Type Alias Syntax
    • 2.17.4. Local Type Aliases
    • 2.17.5. Generic Type Aliases (auto)
    • 2.17.6. Type Aliases with typedecl
  • 2.18. Array
  • 2.19. Table
  • 2.20. Iterator
    • 2.20.1. Making types iterable
    • 2.20.2. builtin iterators
    • 2.20.3. builtin iteration functions
    • 2.20.4. low level builtin iteration functions
    • 2.20.5. next implementation details
  • 2.21. Comprehension
  • 2.22. String Builder
    • 2.22.1. Basic Usage
    • 2.22.2. Supported Types
    • 2.22.3. Format Specifiers
    • 2.22.4. Escaping Curly Brackets
    • 2.22.5. Multi-line Strings
    • 2.22.6. Implementation Notes
    • 2.22.7. Relationship to print
  • 2.23. Modules
    • 2.23.1. Native modules
    • 2.23.2. Builtin modules
    • 2.23.3. Shared modules
    • 2.23.4. Module function visibility
  • 2.24. Move, Copy, and Clone
    • 2.24.1. Copy (=)
    • 2.24.2. Move (<-)
    • 2.24.3. Clone (:=)
    • 2.24.4. Type Compatibility
    • 2.24.5. Variable Initialization
    • 2.24.6. Struct Initialization
    • 2.24.7. Lambda Captures
    • 2.24.8. Containers
    • 2.24.9. Classes
    • 2.24.10. Custom Clone
    • 2.24.11. Quick Reference
  • 2.25. Clone
    • 2.25.1. Cloning rules and implementation details
    • 2.25.2. clone_to_move implementation
  • 2.26. Finalizer
    • 2.26.1. Rules and implementation details
  • 2.27. Temporary types
  • 2.28. Unsafe
    • 2.28.1. implicit
    • 2.28.2. other cases
  • 2.29. Generic Programming
    • 2.29.1. typeinfo
    • 2.29.2. auto and auto(named)
    • 2.29.3. type contracts and type operations
    • 2.29.4. options
    • 2.29.5. typedecl
    • 2.29.6. generic tuples and type<> expressions
  • 2.30. Pattern matching
    • 2.30.1. Enumeration Matching
    • 2.30.2. Matching Variants
    • 2.30.3. Declaring Variables in Patterns
    • 2.30.4. Matching Structs
    • 2.30.5. Using Guards
    • 2.30.6. Tuple Matching
    • 2.30.7. Matching Static Arrays
    • 2.30.8. Dynamic Array Matching
    • 2.30.9. Match Expressions
    • 2.30.10. Matching with ||
    • 2.30.11. [match_as_is] Structure Annotation
    • 2.30.12. [match_copy] Structure Annotation
    • 2.30.13. Static Matching
    • 2.30.14. match_type
    • 2.30.15. Multi-Match
  • 2.31. Annotations
    • 2.31.1. Function Annotations
    • 2.31.2. Structure and Class Annotations
    • 2.31.3. Macro Registration Annotations (daslib)
    • 2.31.4. Contract Annotations (daslib)
    • 2.31.5. Annotation Syntax Details
  • 2.32. Options
    • 2.32.1. Language and Syntax
    • 2.32.2. Lint Control
    • 2.32.3. Optimization
    • 2.32.4. Memory
    • 2.32.5. AOT
    • 2.32.6. Safety and Strictness
    • 2.32.7. Multiple Contexts
    • 2.32.8. Debugging and Profiling
    • 2.32.9. RTTI
    • 2.32.10. Logging
    • 2.32.11. Print Control
    • 2.32.12. Miscellaneous
    • 2.32.13. Module-Registered Options
  • 2.33. Macros
    • 2.33.1. Compilation passes
    • 2.33.2. Invoking macros
    • 2.33.3. AstFunctionAnnotation
    • 2.33.4. AstBlockAnnotation
    • 2.33.5. AstStructureAnnotation
    • 2.33.6. AstEnumerationAnnotation
    • 2.33.7. AstVariantMacro
    • 2.33.8. AstReaderMacro
    • 2.33.9. AstCallMacro
    • 2.33.10. AstPassMacro
    • 2.33.11. AstTypeMacro
    • 2.33.12. AstTypeInfoMacro
    • 2.33.13. AstForLoopMacro
    • 2.33.14. AstCaptureMacro
    • 2.33.15. AstCommentReader
    • 2.33.16. AstSimulateMacro
    • 2.33.17. AstVisitor
  • 2.34. Reification
    • 2.34.1. Simple example
    • 2.34.2. Quote macros
    • 2.34.3. Escape sequences
  • 2.35. Built-in Functions
    • 2.35.1. Invocation
    • 2.35.2. Assertions
    • 2.35.3. Debug
    • 2.35.4. Panic
    • 2.35.5. Memory & Type Utilities
    • 2.35.6. Array Operations
    • 2.35.7. Table Operations
    • 2.35.8. Iterator Operations
    • 2.35.9. Conversion Functions
    • 2.35.10. Clone
    • 2.35.11. Lock Operations
    • 2.35.12. Serialization
    • 2.35.13. Smart Pointer
    • 2.35.14. Memory Mapping
    • 2.35.15. Vector Construction
    • 2.35.16. Move Helpers
    • 2.35.17. Miscellaneous
• 3. The Runtime
  • 3.1. Context
    • 3.1.1. Initialization and shutdown
    • 3.1.2. Macro contexts
    • 3.1.3. Locking
    • 3.1.4. Lookups
    • 3.1.5. Memory allocation and garbage collection
  • 3.2. Locks
    • 3.2.1. Context locks
    • 3.2.2. Array and Table locks
    • 3.2.3. Array and Table lock checking
  • 3.3. Type Mangling
    • 3.3.1. Primitive types
    • 3.3.2. Qualifiers and modifiers
    • 3.3.3. Pointers
    • 3.3.4. Composite prefixes
    • 3.3.5. Container types
    • 3.3.6. Fixed-size arrays (dim)
    • 3.3.7. Callable types
    • 3.3.8. Structures, handled types, and enumerations
    • 3.3.9. Type aliases
    • 3.3.10. Named arguments
    • 3.3.11. Bitfields
    • 3.3.12. Special / internal types
    • 3.3.13. Remove-qualifiers (generics)
    • 3.3.14. Interop function signatures
    • 3.3.15. Querying mangled names at runtime
• 4. Embedding and Integration
  • 4.1. Quick Start
    • 4.1.1. Virtual machine overview
    • 4.1.2. Minimal host program
    • 4.1.3. Key types
    • 4.1.4. Calling daslang functions with arguments
    • 4.1.5. Next steps
  • 4.2. C++ API Reference
    • 4.2.1. Creating a module
    • 4.2.2. Binding C++ types
    • 4.2.3. Cast infrastructure
    • 4.2.4. Binding C++ functions
    • 4.2.5. Binding C++ enumerations
    • 4.2.6. Function side effects
    • 4.2.7. Callbacks — blocks, functions, lambdas
    • 4.2.8. File access
    • 4.2.9. Project file resolution
  • 4.3. C API Reference
    • 4.3.1. When to use the C API
    • 4.3.2. Initialization and shutdown
    • 4.3.3. Text output
    • 4.3.4. File access
    • 4.3.5. Compilation
    • 4.3.6. Simulation and context
    • 4.3.7. Function evaluation
    • 4.3.8. Argument helpers
    • 4.3.9. Calling lambdas and blocks
    • 4.3.10. Binding C functions
    • 4.3.11. Binding types
    • 4.3.12. String allocation
    • 4.3.13. Context variables
    • 4.3.14. Serialization
    • 4.3.15. AOT checking
    • 4.3.16. Module groups
    • 4.3.17. Side effects
  • 4.4. Advanced Topics
    • 4.4.1. AOT compilation
    • 4.4.2. Class adapters
    • 4.4.3. Coroutines (generators)
    • 4.4.4. Dynamic script generation
    • 4.4.5. Standalone contexts
    • 4.4.6. Serialization
    • 4.4.7. Sandboxing
    • 4.4.8. File access customization