Language Reference

This reference documents the Nilakan language features implemented by the current interpreter.

Reference sections

• Lexical Structure covers comments, indentation, literals, identifiers, separators, and line continuation.
• Program Structure covers file-level ordering, top-level forms, reserved names, and function scope.
• Values And Types covers the runtime value model.
• Expressions covers literals, operators, calls, indexing, and slicing.
• Operators And Precedence gives the implemented precedence and associativity table.
• Statements covers assignment, conditionals, effectful procedure calls, returns, and loop placement.
• Functions covers definitions, positional and named calls, default parameters, scoping, and return rules.
• Commit Loops covers init, while, primed assignment, staged updates, and rhs_prime pragmas.
• Type Contracts covers supported annotation forms and runtime checks.
• Error Handling covers err values, try, catch, and how Nilakan differs from Python exceptions.
• Limits And Errors covers runtime limits and major static restrictions.
• Open Work records known language-design and implementation work that is not part of the current semantics.

For built-ins and methods, see the API Reference.