Types and generics

A type is a way to identify what “kind” of value something is. For example, the expression "hello" has type Text, and 1 + 2 has type Number.

There are five main kinds of types in Wipple:

Marker types have a single value and contain no information.
Structure types represent a collection of values (“fields”), where each field has a name and stores a single value.
Enumeration types represent a fixed set of values (“variants”), where each variant has zero or more associated values.
Tuple types represent a fixed-size, heterogeneous collection of values.
Function types represent a function that accepts a value of one type and returns a value of another type.

Type annotations

You can use the :: operator to explicitly declare the type of a value. If Wipple determines that your type is incorrect, it will raise an error. For example, to explicitly declare that 42 has type Number:

42 :: Number

Note: If you want to give a variable x a type T, you can’t write x :: T at the statement level, as this defines a constant. To get around this, wrap the type annotation in parentheses: (x :: T).

Catalog of types

Markers

Marker types can be declared using the type template:

Marker : type

To refer to the value the marker represents, just write the name of the marker type. For example, if x : Marker, then x has type Marker.

Structures

Structure types can be declared using the type template followed by a block of type annotations:

Structure : type {
    x :: Number
    y :: Text
}

To create a new structure, write the structure’s name followed by a block of variable assignments:

s : Structure {
    x : 42
    y : "hello"
}

Enumerations

Enumeration types can be declared using the type template followed by a block of variants:

Grade : type {
    A
    B
    C
    D
    F
}

You can also add associated values to each variant:

Either : type {
    Left Number
    Right Text
}

To create a variant of the enumeration, write the enumeration’s name, followed by the variant’s name, followed by any associated values:

g : Grade A
e : Either Left 42

If you want to refer to the variants directly without having to write the enumeration’s name every time, you can use the use template:

use Grade
g : A

use Either
e : Left 42

Tuples

Tuples and tuple types can be declared using the , operator:

(1 , "a" , True) :: (Number , Text , Boolean)

The empty tuple () is also valid. Usually, () is used for a function that accepts and/or returns no meaningful value:

show 42 :: ()

Function types

Functions and function types can be declared using the -> operator:

(x -> x) :: (Number -> Number)

In Wipple, functions may only accept one value. To accept another value, make the function return another function and move your computation into that new function:

f : (x -> y -> x + y) :: (Number -> Number -> Number)
g : (f 1) :: (Number -> Number)
h : (g 2) :: Number

Generics

Wipple supports generics in the form of type functions, which accept one or more types and produce a new type as a result. For example, we can redefine Either from above to be more generic:

Either : A B => type {
    Left A
    Right B
}

To use such a type function, you call it by its name, providing the specific types as input:

Left 42 :: Either Number Text

Here, the annotation is required because Left only refers to A, meaning there’s no way for Wipple to automatically determine B.

Type placeholders

You can use _ to represent a placeholder, the type of which Wipple should determine automatically. For example, we know the type of A in the above example to be Number, so we can make the type annotation more concise using a placeholder:

Left 42 :: Either _ Text

In a type function, you can use _ to create an implicit type parameter:

left :: Left => Either Left _ -> Maybe Left
left : ...

right :: Right => Either _ Right -> Maybe Right
right : ...

The Wipple Guide