Variables & Statements

Variables are a basic building block in programming and they are basically memorable names associated with values within a codespace that can be used to refer to the said value latter in the code.

Reference

• Variables & Statements
  • Reference
  • Declaraing Variables
  • Valid variable names
  • Variable scopes
  • Naming Convention
  • Statements

Declaraing Variables

In Blade, the process of declaring a variable and assigning to a value to it are two distinct and non-dependent actions. To declare a variable, use the var keyword. Any variable declared without a value will automatically be assigned the value nil.

For example:

%> var a 
%> a

To assign or reassign/overwrite the value of a declared variable, you can simply use the = operator. For example,

%> a = 25
%> a
25
%> a = 'Hello, World'
%> a
'Hello, World'

Due to the frequent need to declare and assign values to variables, Blade allows you to declare a variable and assign value to it using a continious statement as follows:

%> var a = 'Great!'
%> a
'Great!'

Blade also allows chaining variable declarations as well as it's assignment form discussed just now using a comma (,) as a separator.

For example:

%> var animal, food   # declaration without assignment
%> animal
%> food
%> 
%> var name = 'Joe', age = 31, is_adult = true  # declaration with assignment
%> name
'Joe'
%> age
31
%> is_adult
true

Anything can be assigned to a value.

Valid variable names

A valid variable name in Blade follows the C convention. A variable name must start with either an ASCII alphabet (A to Z whether in the lower or upper case) or and underscore (_), followed by zero or more combinations of ASCII alphabets, numbers or underscore.

For example:

_, a, _9, _test, test, another_test, Big_test, AVeryBigText, rot13 etc.

Reserved words cannot be used as variable names

The following variable declaration is bound to fail as it makes use of a reserved word and will trigger a SyntaxError.

%> echo = 'Failure!'
SyntaxError at '=': expected expression
  <repl>:1

Variable scopes

Blade variables are scoped to their parent block and do not override or hide variables declared outside the given block. For example:

%> var a = 200
%> {
..   var a = 100
..   {
..     var a =  50
..     echo a
..   }
..   echo a
.. }
50
100
%> echo a
200

Scopes are in the following hierarchy in descending order.

• Module: Variables declared globally in a module, accessible to all scopes in the module.
• Instance: Variables bound specifically to an instance of a class.
• Class: Variables belonging to a class shared by all child functions and instances.
• Function: Variables declared within a function. This is the same as the local scope.
• Blocks: Variables declared within a block. E.g. if, while block.

Naming Convention

While Blade as a language does not restrict the user to any particular naming convention, throughout this tutorial and the entire documentation, the following conventions will be adhered to. The Blade community is adviced but not required to try to comply with the convention.

The convention stated below is subject to improvement and all suggestions are welcomed and will be treated with high regards.

1. Prefer snake case variables over camel case variables. For example, instead of myVar, use my_var.
2. Function names begin with lower case. For example, my_function.
3. Class names begins in upper case and are preferably camel cased. For example, MyClass.
4. File and directory names are preferably in lower case and spaces in the names treated with snake casing. This help to keep module and packages names for importation in-tune with the rest of the codebase. For example, instead of MyPackage/MyFile.b, use my_package/my_file.b.

Statements

A statement is a unit of a code that expresses some actions to be carried out and programs are built on statements. In Blade, statements should be terminated with a new line or a semi-colon (;). Most of our examples so far have used new lines and that's what we'll use for most of the documentation. But you should know that statements can also be terminated by semicolons.

For example, we can have multiple variable assignment on the same line as follows:

%> var a, b   # this statement is separated from the next one using a newline
%> a = 20; b = 35  # two statements on a line separated using a semi-colon
%> a; b
20
35

@convention: Terminate statements with a newline. Only use a semi-colon when the respective statements are short and using a semi-colon wouldn't introduce any confusion or illegibility.

Previous Topic | Next Topic