Lexical Rules¶

Keywords¶

Keywords in Céu are reserved names that cannot be used as identifiers (e.g., variable names):

    and             as              async           atomic          await           

    break           call            code            const           continue        

    data            deterministic   do              dynamic         else            

    emit            end             escape          event           every           

    false           finalize        FOREVER         hold            if              

    in              input           is              isr             kill            

    lock            loop            lua             native          new

    nohold          not             nothing         null            or

    outer           output          par             pause           plain

    pool            pos             pre             pure            recursive

    request         resume          sizeof          spawn           static

    then            thread          tight           traverse        true

    until           val             var             vector          watching

    with            bool            byte            f32             f64

    float           int             s16             s32             s64

    s8              ssize           u16             u32             u64

    u8              uint            usize           void

Identifiers¶

Céu uses identifiers to refer to types (ID_type), variables (ID_int), vectors (ID_int), pools (ID_int), internal events (ID_int), external events (ID_ext), code abstractions (ID_abs), data abstractions (ID_abs), fields (ID_field), native symbols (ID_nat), and block labels (ID_int).

ID       ::= [a-z, A-Z, 0-9, _]+
ID_int   ::= ID             // ID beginning with lowercase
ID_ext   ::= ID             // ID all in uppercase, not beginning with digit
ID_abs   ::= ID {`.´ ID}    // IDs beginning with uppercase, containining at least one lowercase)
ID_field ::= ID             // ID not beginning with digit
ID_nat   ::= ID             // ID beginning with underscore

ID_type  ::= ( ID_nat | ID_abs
             | void  | bool  | byte
             | f32   | f64   | float
             | s8    | s16   | s32   | s64
             | u8    | u16   | u32   | u64
             | int   | uint  | ssize | usize )

Declarations for code and data create new types which can be used as type identifiers.

Examples:

var int a;                    // "a" is a variable, "int" is a type
emit e;                       // "e" is an internal event
await E;                      // "E" is an external input event
spawn Move();                 // "Move" is a code abstraction and a type
var Rect r;                   // "Rect" is a data abstraction and a type
return r.width;               // "width" is a field
_printf("hello world!\n");    // "_printf" is a native symbol

Literals¶

Céu supports literals for booleans, integers, floats, strings, and null pointers.

Booleans¶

The boolean type has only two possible values: true and false.

Integers¶

Céu supports decimal and hexadecimal integers:

• Decimals: a sequence of digits (i.e., [0-9]+).
• Hexadecimals: a sequence of hexadecimal digits (i.e., [0-9, a-f, A-F]+) prefixed by 0x.

Examples:

// both are equal to the decimal 127
v = 127;    // decimal
v = 0x7F;   // hexadecimal

Floats¶

TODO (like C)

Strings¶

A sequence of characters surrounded by " is converted into a null-terminated string, just like in C:

Example:

_printf("Hello World!\n");

Null pointer¶

TODO (like C)

Comments¶

Céu provides C-style comments:

• Single-line comments begin with // and run to end of the line.
• Multi-line comments use /* and */ as delimiters. Multi-line comments can be nested by using a different number of * as delimiters.

Examples:

var int a;    // this is a single-line comment

/** comments a block that contains comments

var int a;
/* this is a nested multi-line comment
a = 1;
*/

**/