5.2.6. Statements

Most of Spicy’s statements are pretty standard stuff. We summarize them briefly in the following.

5.2.6.1. assert

assert EXPR;

assert EXPR : MSG;

Ensures at runtime that EXPR evaluates to a True value. If it doesn’t, an exception gets thrown that will typically abort execution. EXPR must either be of boolean type to begin with, or support coercion into it. If MSG is specified, it must be a string and will be carried along with the exception.

5.2.6.2. break

break;

Inside a for or while loop, break aborts the loop’s body, with execution then continuing right after the loop construct.

5.2.6.3. for

for ( ID in ITERABLE )
    BLOCK

Loops over all the elements of an iterable value. ID is an identifier that will become local variable inside BLOCK, with the current loop element assigned on each round. ITERABLE is a value of any type that provides iterators.

Examples:

module Test;

for ( i in [1, 2, 3] )
    print i;

for ( i in b"abc" ) {
    print i;
}

local v = vector("a", "b", "c");

for ( i in v )
    print i;

# spicyc -j for.spicy
1
2
3
97
98
99
a
b
c

5.2.6.4. if

if ( EXPR )
    BLOCK

if ( EXPR )
    BLOCK
else
    BLOCK

A classic if-statement branching based on a boolean expression EXPR.

5.2.6.5. import

import MODULE;

Makes the content of another module available, see Modules for more.

5.2.6.6. print

print EXPR;

print EXPR_1, ..., EXPR_N;

Prints one or more expressions to standard output. This is supported for expressions of any type, with each type knowing how to render its values into a readable representation. If multiple expressions are specified, commas will separate them in the output.

Note

A particular use-case combines print with string interpolation (i.e., string::Modulo):

module Test;

print "Hello, %s!" % "World";
print "%s=%d" % ("x", 1);

# spicyc -j print.spicy
Hello, World!
x=1

5.2.6.7. return

return;

return EXPR;

Inside a function or hook, return yields control back to the caller. If it’s a function with a non-void return value, the return must provide a corresponding EXPR.

5.2.6.8. stop

stop;

Inside a foreach container hook (see here), aborts the parsing loop without adding the current (final) value to the container.

5.2.6.9. switch

switch ( [local IDENT =] CTRL_EXPR ) {
    case EXPR [, ..., EXPR]:
        BLOCK;

    ...

    case EXPR [, ..., EXPR]:
        BLOCK;

   [default:
        BLOCK]
}

Branches across a set of alternatives based on the value of an control expression. CTRL_EXPR is compared against all the case expressions through the type’s equality operator, coercing CTRL_EXPR accordingly first where necessary. If local IDENT is specified, the blocks have access to a corresponding local variable that holds the value of the control expression. If no default is given, the runtime will throw an UnhandledSwitchCase exception if there’s no matching case.

Note

Don’t confuse the switch statement with the unit type’s switch parsing construct. They look similar, but do different things.

5.2.6.10. throw

throw EXPR;

Triggers a parse error exception with the message indicated by EXPR. EXPR needs to be a String. throw aborts parsing.

5.2.6.11. try/catch

Todo

This isn’t available in Spicy yet (#89).

try
    BLOCK

catch [(TYPE IDENT)]
    BLOCK

...

catch [(TYPE IDENT)]
    BLOCK

Catches any exception thrown in the try block that match one of the types in any of catch headers, which must be Exception types. A catch without a type matches any exception. If no catch matches an exception thrown in the try block, it’ll be propagated further up the stack. A bare throw statement can be used inside a catch block to rethrow the current exception.

5.2.6.12. while

while ( COND )
    BLOCK

while ( local IDENT = EXPR; COND )
    BLOCK

while introduces a loop that executes BLOCK for as long as the boolean COND evaluates to true. The second form initializes a new local variable IDENT with EXPR, and makes it available inside both COND and BLOCK.