enso/docs/syntax/assignment.md

layout	title	category	tags	order
developer-doc	Assignment Expressions	syntax	syntax assignment	6

Assignment Expressions

Assignment syntax in Enso is fairly magical, given that it is the language's syntax for monadic bind.

• How Assignment Works
• Function Definitions
• Pattern Match Bindings
• Extension Methods
  • Method Syntax
  • Function Syntax
• Top-Level Assignments

How Assignment Works

Assignment in Enso operates as follows:

• An assignment is an expression.
• The left-hand-side introduces a pattern context.
• The pattern on the left-hand-side is matched against (unified with) the value that occurs on its right-hand-side.
• A single line must contain at most one assignment.
• An assignment may only appear as the root expression of a line of code in a file.
• An assignment returns the value Nothing, and does not return the value that is assigned to it.

The assignment operator has myriad uses, and is used to define variables, functions, extension methods, and to perform pattern matching. Each different case will see an appropriate desugaring applied (see below).

Please note that not all occurrences of the = operator are assignments in the general sense. The above rules do not apply when using said operator to pass arguments by name.

Function Definitions

If the left hand side of an assignment is syntactically a prefix application chain, where the left-most name is a variable name, the assignment is considered to introduce a function definition (the syntax sugared version).

For a prefix chain a b c = ..., this operates as follows:

• The name a is bound in the enclosing scope, and is called the 'function name'.
• The names b and c (the 'function arguments') are converted into nested lambda arguments in the function body.

In essence, the above example is equivalent to:

a = b -> c -> ...

Please note that by the rules of naming specified previously, if an operator occurs in the same position as a it will also be defined.

Pattern Match Bindings

If the left hand side of an assignment is syntactically a prefix application chain, where the left-most name is a type name, the assignment is considered to introduce a pattern match binding.

It operates as follows for code consisting of a prefix chain A b c = expr and trailing code tail....

A b c = expr
tail...

• A case expression is created with scrutinee expr.
• The matching names A, b, and c are used in a case expression branch's pattern. The branch's expression is tail....
• A catch-all branch is created that has expression error.

As each branch in a case expression has its own scope, this desugaring means that the names b and c are made visible in the scope where the pattern match binding occurs. This is due to the fact that pattern match branches are lambda expressions, and reuse the same scoping rules.

This also works for operators in an infix position, where its operands will be matched against.

Extension Methods

There are two cases where an assignment creates an extension method:

1. Method Syntax: If the left-hand-side of an assignment is syntactically a prefix application chain where the left-most expression is an infix application of ., this assignment is considered to introduce an extension method.
2. Function Syntax: If the left hand side of an assignment is syntactically a prefix application chain where the left-most expression is a variable identifier and the second expression from the left is a variable named this with an explicit type ascription, this is also considered to introduce an extension method.

Method Syntax

This syntax for extension methods works as follows:

• The target of the method syntax (left argument to .) defines the type on which the extension method is created.
• An implicit this argument is inserted with that type at the start of the arguments list.
• All arguments are desugared to lambda arguments.

My_Type.method_name a b c = ...

Function Syntax

This syntax for extension methods works as follows:

• The this argument type is used to define the type on which the extension method is created.
• this and all remaining arguments are desugared to lambda arguments.

method_name (this : My_Type) a b c = ...

Top-Level Assignments

In order to aid with disambiguation, any binding made in the root scope without an explicit target is implicitly defined on a type representing the current module. For example, a binding main = ... is implicitly here.main = ....

This works as follows:

• All non-extension methods defined at the top level are augmented with an implicit first parameter here.
• They are callable by name if not ambiguous, but can be disambiguated by using here.name where necessary.