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+```
+metadata.title = "Part 12: Typed Variables"
+metadata.tags = ["build a programming language", "rust"]
+metadata.date = "2022-05-25 16:38:42 -0400"
+metadata.shortDesc = ""
+metadata.slug = "typed-variables"
+metadata.preamble = `
This post is part of a series about learning Rust and building a small programming language.
`
+```
+
+Hi. It's been a while. Though the pace of blog posts fell off a cliff last year[^1], I've continued working on my toy programming language on and off.
+
+[^1]: During and after WWDC21, basically all of my non-work programming energy shifted onto iOS apps, and then never shifted back. I do recognize the irony of resuming mere weeks before WWDC22.
+
+
+
+## Part 1: Type Theory is for Chumps
+
+I spent a while thinking about what I wanted the type system to look like—I do want some level of static typing, I know that much—but it got to the point where I was tired of thinking about it and just wanted to get back to writing code. So, lo and behold, the world's simplest type system:
+
+```rust
+#[derive(Debug, PartialEq, Clone, Copy)]
+enum Type {
+ Integer,
+ Boolean,
+ String,
+}
+
+impl Type {
+ fn is_assignable_to(&self, other: &Type) -> bool {
+ self == other
+ }
+}
+```
+
+Then, in the `Context`, rather than variables just being a map of names to `Value`s, the map now stores `VariableDecl`s:
+
+```rust
+struct VariableDecl {
+ variable_type: Type,
+ value: Value,
+}
+```
+
+So variable declaration and lookup now goes through a simple helper in the function that creates the `VariableDecl`.
+
+For now, types at variable declarations are optional at parse time since I haven't touched type inference yet and I didn't want to go back and update a bunch of unit tests. They are, however, inferred at evaluation time, if one wasn't specified.
+
+```rust
+fn parse_statement<'a, I: Iterator- >(it: &mut Peekable<'a, I>) -> Option {
+ // ...
+ let node = match token {
+ Token::Let => {
+ let name: String;
+ if let Some(Token::Identifier(s)) = it.peek() {
+ name = s.clone();
+ it.next();
+ } else {
+ panic!("expected identifier after let");
+ }
+ let mut variable_type = None;
+ if let Some(Token::Colon) = it.peek() {
+ it.next();
+ variable_type = Some(parse_type().expect("type after colon in variable declaration"));
+ }
+ expect_token!(it, Equals, "equals in variable declaration");
+ let value = parse_expression(it).expect("initial value in variable declaration");
+ Some(Statement::Declare {
+ name,
+ variable_type,
+ value,
+ })
+ }
+ // ...
+ };
+ // ...
+}
+```
+
+The `parse_type` function is super simple, so I won't go over it—it just converts a the tokens for string/int/bool into their respective `Type`s. I call `expect` on the result of that type and then again wrap it in a `Some`, which seems redundant, because if whatever followed the colon wasn't a type, there's a syntax error and I don't want to continue.
+
+Actually evaluating the variable declaration is still pretty straightforward, though it now checks that the type the initialization expression evaluated to matches the declared type:
+
+```rust
+fn eval_declare_variable(
+ name: &str,
+ mutable: bool,
+ variable_type: &Option,
+ value: &Node,
+ context: &ContextRef,
+) {
+ let val = eval_expr(value, context);
+ let variable_type = match variable_type {
+ Some(declared) => {
+ assert!(
+ val.value_type().is_assignable_to(declared),
+ "variable value type is not assignable to declared type"
+ );
+ *declared
+ }
+ None => val.value_type(),
+ };
+ context
+ .borrow_mut()
+ .declare_variable(name, mutable, variable_type, val);
+}
+```
+
+## Part 2: Variable Variables
+
+The other bit I added was mutable variables, so that I could write a small program that did something non-trivial.
+
+To do this, I changed the `VariableDecl` struct I showed above to hold a `ValueStorage` rather than a `Value` directly.
+
+`ValueStorage` is an enum with variants for mutable and immutable variables. Immutables variables simply own their `Value`. Mutable ones, though, wrap it in a `RefCell` so that it can be mutated.
+
+```rust
+enum ValueStorage {
+ Immutable(Value),
+ Mutable(RefCell),
+}
+```
+
+Setting the value is straightforward, but getting them is a bit annoying because `Value` isn't `Copy`, since it may own a string. So, there are a couple of helper functions: one to access the borrowed value and one to clone it.
+
+```rust
+impl ValueStorage {
+ fn set(&self, value: Value) {
+ match self {
+ ValueStorage::Immutable(_) => panic!("cannot set immutable variable"),
+ ValueStorage::Mutable(cell) => {
+ *cell.borrow_mut() = value;
+ }
+ }
+ }
+
+ fn with_value R>(&self, f: F) -> R {
+ match self {
+ ValueStorage::Immutable(val) => f(&val),
+ ValueStorage::Mutable(cell) => f(&cell.borrow()),
+ }
+ }
+
+ fn clone_value(&self) -> Value {
+ self.with_value(|v| v.clone())
+ }
+}
+```
+
+This works, but isn't ideal. At some point, the complex `Value` types should probably changed to reference-counted so, even if they're still not copy-able, cloning doesn't always involve an allocation.
+
+Lexing and parsing I won't go into detail on, since it's trivial. There's a new for `var` and whether a declaration starts with that or `let` controls the mutability.
+
+Setting variables isn't complicated either: when parsing a statement, if there's an equals sign after an identifier, that turns into a `SetVariable` which is evaluated simply by calling the aforementioned `set` function on the `ValueStorage` for that variable.
+
+And with that, I can write a little fibonacci program:
+
+```txt
+$ cat fib.toy
+var a = 0
+var b = 1
+var i = 0
+while (i < 10) {
+ print("iteration: " + toString(i) + ", a: " + toString(a));
+ let tmp = a
+ a = b
+ b = tmp + a
+ i = i + 1
+}
+
+$ cargo r -- fib.toy
+iteration: 0, a: 0
+iteration: 1, a: 1
+iteration: 2, a: 1
+iteration: 3, a: 2
+iteration: 4, a: 3
+iteration: 5, a: 5
+iteration: 6, a: 8
+iteration: 7, a: 13
+iteration: 8, a: 21
+iteration: 9, a: 34
+```
+
+I also added a small CLI using [`structopt`](https://lib.rs/structopt) so I didn't have to keep writing code inside a string in `main.rs`.