Alore Language Reference

Introduction

This document describes the syntax and the semantics of the Alore programming language. You will also need the Alore Library Reference as a companion, and in particular the definition of the std module, since this document frequently refers to standard library types.

If you are just learning the basics of Alore, you are advised to start with Introduction to Alore.

Note: This document currently only covers the dynamically-typed subset of Alore. See Introduction to Alore Type System for a description of using static typing in Alore programs.

Contents

• Notation
• Lexical structure
  • Tokens
  • Joining lines
  • Reserved words
  • Restricted names
  • Source file encodings
• Data model
  • Values and objects
  • Objects and types
  • Types
  • Global definitions
  • Local variables
  • Member variables
  • Garbage collection
• Execution
  • Initialization
  • Module dependencies
  • Order of initialization
  • Calling objects
  • Raising exceptions
• Program structure
  • Main module
  • Modules
  • Import declarations
  • The std module
  • Standard modules
• Top-level definitions and statements
  • Variable and constant definitions
  • Function definitions
  • Class definitions
  • Interface definitions
• Scope of definitions
  • Global definitions
  • Class members
  • Local variables
  • Precedence of names
  • Name clashes
• Statements
  • Blocks
  • Expression statement
  • Assignment statement
  • Operator assignment statement
  • Local variable definition
  • If statement
  • Switch statement
  • Loops
  • Break statement
  • Return statement
  • Try statement
  • Raise statement
• Expressions
  • Operator precedence
  • Lvalues and rvalues
  • Expressions in boolean context
  • Order of evaluation
  • Simple expressions
  • Referencing global definitions
  • Binary operations
  • Boolean operations
  • Unary operations
  • Subscripting
  • Call expressions
  • Array constructors
  • Tuple constructors
  • Member references
  • Superclass member references
  • Anonymous functions
  • Cast expressions
• Grammar
• Definitions