Asylum Programming Language Reference Manual

Welcome to the Asylum Programming Language Reference Manual! Here, you will learn all there is to know about Asylum, regardless of your programming experience! Whether you are a programming veteran, or completely new to programming, this reference should go into the necessary depth with even practice problems to quiz your understanding.

Asylum Language Reference:

• About Asylum
  • Inspiration
• First Program (Hello World)
  • Understanding The Program
  • Understanding The Function Syntax
  • A Cool Trick
  • Print Function
  • Comments
  • Challenges
  • Challenge Solutions
• Functions
  • Return Types
  • Function Parameters
  • Different Ways To Return
  • Multiple Function Definitions
  • Default Parameters
  • Challenges
  • Challenge Solutions
• Data Types
  • Purpose Of Data Types
  • Primitive Data Types
  • Special Types
  • EASL Types
  • Storage Qualifiers
  • Typedefs
  • Structs
  • Challenges
  • Challenge Solutions
• Variables
  • Why Use Variables?
  • Using A Variable
  • Operators
  • A More Complex Example
  • Access Modifers
  • Struct Variables
  • Challenges
  • Challenge Solutions
• Tuples
  • Variables
  • Accessing Members
  • Packing/Unpacking Tuples
  • Named Tuples
  • Batch Operations
  • Challenges
  • Challenge Solutions
• Errors
  • Error Types
  • False Operator
  • Error Propagation
  • Challenges
  • Challenge Solutions
• Structs & Implementations
  • Constructors
  • Default Values
  • Destructors
  • Attributes
  • Properties
  • Operators
  • Casts
  • Challenges
  • Challenge Solutions
• Inheritance
  • Basic Inheritance
  • Traits
  • The Diamond Problem
• Control Flow
  • If Statements
  • Match
  • Loops
  • Recursion Recursion Recursion
• Arrays
  • Iterating Over An Array
  • Dimensional Arrays
  • Arrays Of Arrays
  • Dynamic Arrays
  • Slicing
  • Challenges
  • Challenge Solutions
• Strings
  • Formatting
  • Escape Characters
  • Splitting
  • Repeating
  • Contains
  • Replacing
  • Substrings
  • Challenges
  • Challenge Solutions
• Parameter Types
  • Type Listing
  • Reference Parameters
  • Move Parameters
• References
  • Standard References
  • Nullable References
  • Smart References
  • When To Use Which Reference
  • Challenges
  • Challenge Solutions
• Enums
  • Enum Matching
  • Getting/Setting Enum Vals
  • Challenges
  • Challenge Solutions
• Pointers
  • Variables Overview
  • Address-Of Operator
  • Dereference Operator
  • Points-To Operator
  • Structures
  • Pointer Math
  • Challenges
  • Challenge Solutions
• Allocators
  • Arena Allocators
  • General Purpose Allocators
  • Custom Allocators
  • Challenges
  • Challenge Solutions

Developer Guide:

• Asylum Developer Guide
• AST Creation With ANTLR4
  • ANTLR4 Overview
• Program Builder API
  • Test Case
• Builder Code Calling For ASTs
  • ANTLR Visitors
• Working With The Code Representation
  • Object-Oriented Representation In Greater Detail
  • Compilation Process

Goals

Asylum has many goals:

• Be clear on how memory is being utilized (copied, referenced, moved, allocated, destroyed, etc).

• Be beginner friendly (intuitive syntax and semantics, “pits of success”, higher-level abstractions, etc).

• Be applicable for general-purpose and low-level development.

• Written densely. This is to make it faster to type, read, and refactor. Most keywords and common types are short. Operator overloading is also allowed and taken advantage of to make operations easier to do and recognize.

Non-Goals

There are some things Asylum does not aim to be:

• A clone of any language. While Asylum may look similar to a given language and have similar features, it is a different language and will not have the same features and guarantees.