Custom Types

ayla allows you to define custom types using the type keyword

type Foo int

this creates a new type Foo with an underlying type of int

casting

Ayla also supports type casting for custom types

type Foo int

egg a = 5
egg b = Foo(a)

here a is an int and b is a Foo

So even though Foo is based on int, they are considered distinct types

For example, this will produce a type error due to the fact that they are not the same type

type Foo int

egg x Foo = 5
egg y int = x

output: runtime error: type mismatch: 'Foo' assigned to 'int'

to convert back just do:

egg y int = int(x)

you can also make custom types as composites

this includes things like slices, arrays, structs, and maps

Lets make a Names slice type and use it!

type Names []string

egg x = Names{"Ziad", "Ayla", "Elen"}

This works because the composite literal,

[]string{"Ziad", "Ayla", "Elen"}

got converted to Names like this

Names([]string{"Ziad", "Ayla", "Elen"})