The TASM Language Reference Manual Version 1.1 - Synrc

• Constants are enclosed in single quotes (e.g. ’a’, ’1’, etc.), except where settheoric
notation is used
• The formal grammar uses the basic symbols from BNF (e.g., {}, [], , etc.)
3.1.2 Names
The use of names is crucial in the TASM language; every type of object (variables,
types, resources, machines, etc.) is uniquely identified by its name. We define the
generic abstract type T ASMName to express the restrictions on individual names.
The type TASMName is used in the rest of this document when a name has the listed
restrictions. The TASM language also has a set of reserved keywords that cannot be
used as names. The complete list of keywords is shown in table 3.1.
• TASMName is a string of characters
• Each character of TASMName can be either ’a’-’z’ or ’A’-’Z’ or ’ ’ or ’1’-’9’ or
’-’
• TASMName must start with ’a’-’z’ or ’A’-’Z’
• TASMName has a length: 1-64
• TASMName is not a reserved keyword
• TASMName is case-sensitive
• Each TASMName is unique in a given TASM specification
The restrictions on the uniqueness of TASMName’s might seem restrictive, especially
in the absence of namespaces, but imposing this restriction removes potential
ambiguities.
3.1.3 Types
The TASM language contains only simple types. There are no data structures, subtypes,
or polymorphic types. The TASM language is also strongly typed; there are no dynamic
types or type inference. All typing rules are enforced at compilation time and type
safety is assured if a TASM specification compiles correctly. The TASM language
supplies three default types:
• Integers = {. . . , −1, 0, 1, . . .}
• Floats = Rational Numbers (e.g., -1.11, -0.5, 0.0, 10.45, etc.)
• Booleans = {T rue, F alse}
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