Templates

04 / 09 / 25

Objective

The objective of templates is to achieve an effect similar to polymorphism. For example, defining baseline logic (the template) without static types, then during compile time a clone of the template with static types is generated for each unique call.

Dictionary

template - A keyword denoting the definition of a template function.
$[a-zA-Z] - Syntax denoting the use of an unknown type, single letters only.

Examples

In the example below you can see a template add function, it takes two parameters of unknown types. The parameter names are x and y with types $A and $B, respectively. Templates must return/derive a single type.

template add($A x, $B y) -> int {
	return int'(x + y);
}

If this template was called here is an example generated function:

fn add(float x, int y) -> int {
	return int'(x + y);
}

add(10.0, 5);

Notice how in this example the template call (add(10.0, 5)) uses a float and an integer? This will dictate how to template generates the function. A template can also be used for multiple function calls with multiple dynamic types, ex:

fn add(float x, int y) -> int {
	return int'(x + y);
}

fn add(float x, float y) -> int {
	return int'(x + y);
}

Templates can also reference the dynamic types multiple times in it's function body as long as the result/derivitive of the function remains constant, ex:

template multiply($A x) -> int {
	$A amount = 2;
	$A result = x * amount;
	return int'result;
}