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67 lines
2.1 KiB
Markdown
67 lines
2.1 KiB
Markdown
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# Type ascriptions
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> Note: this RFC was adapted from an internal proposal that predates RFC process
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## Summary
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Implement syntax for type ascriptions using `::`
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## Motivation
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Luau would like to provide a mechanism for requiring a value to be of a specific type:
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```
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-- Asserts that the result of a + b is a number.
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-- Emits a type error if it isn't.
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local foo = (a + b) as number
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```
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This syntax was proposed in the original Luau syntax proposal. Unfortunately, we discovered that there is a syntactical ambiguity with `as`:
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```
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-- Two function calls or a type assertion?
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foo() as (bar)
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```
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## Design
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To provide this functionality without introducing syntactical confusion, we want to change this syntax to use the `::` symbol instead of `as`:
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```
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local foo = (a + b) :: number
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```
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This syntax is borrowed from Haskell, where it performs the same function.
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The `::` operator will bind very tightly, like `as`:
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```
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-- type assertion applies to c, not (b + c).
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local a = b + c :: number
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```
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Note that `::` can only cast a *single* value to a type - not a type pack (multiple values). This means that in the following context, `::` changes runtime behavior:
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```
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foo(1, bar()) -- passes all values returned by bar() to foo()
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foo(1, bar() :: any) -- passes just the first value returned by bar() to foo()
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```
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## Drawbacks
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It's somewhat unusual for Lua to use symbols as operators, with the exception of arithmetics (and `..`). Also a lot of Luau users may be familiar with TypeScript, where the equivalent concept uses `as`.
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`::` may make it more difficult for us to use Turbofish (`::<>`) in the future.
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## Alternatives
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We considered requiring `as` to be wrapped in parentheses, and then relaxing this restriction where there's no chance of syntactical ambiguity:
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```
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local foo: SomeType = (fn() as SomeType)
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-- Parentheses not needed: unambiguous!
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bar(foo as number)
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```
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We decided to not go with this due to concerns about the complexity of the grammar - it requires users to internalize knowledge of our parser to know when they need to surround an `as` expression with parentheses. The rules for when you can leave the parentheses out are somewhat nonintuitive.
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