Ara

Syntax

Ara's syntax is designed to be familiar to people coming from C-like languages while being a bit simpler and more streamlined.

Scripts are stored in plain text files with a .ara file extension. Ara compiles programs ahead-of-time, first to LLVM IR, and then to a native binary.

Comments

Line comments start with // and end at the end of the line:

// This is a comment.

Reserved words

One way to get a quick feel for a language’s style is to see what words it reserves. Here’s what Ara has:

if elif else while break continue return var fn class for struct as extern null

Identifiers

Naming rules are similar to other programming languages. Identifiers start with a letter or underscore and may contain letters, digits, and underscores. Case is sensitive.

hi
camelCase
PascalCase
_under_score
abc123
ALL_CAPS

Newlines

Newlines (\n) are meaningful in Ara. They are used to separate statements:

// Two statements:
var x: i32 // Newline.
x = 0

Semicolons

TODO

fn foo(): i32
{
    return 10
}

fn bar(): void
{
    return;
}