Lists

The simplest collection type allows you to keep an arbitrary number of values in some ordering. The list is very much like a Python list in that it allows arbitrary appends, and random access to read values at a O-based index. Unlike Python, as Claro is statically typed, all values in the list must be of the same type, and this type must be pre-determined upon declaration of the variable which reference the list.

Fig 1:

var l: mut [int] = mut [1, 3, 7, 2, -115, 0];
lists::add(l, 99);
print(len(l)); # 7
print(l[1] == l[0]); # false
print(l[6] == 99); # true

Output:

7
false
true

Accessing List Elements

Lists support random-access indexing via traditional C-like syntax:

Fig 2:

var l = [1, 2];
print(l[0]);
print(l[1]);

Output:

1
2

Mutable List Element Reassignment

You can update the individual values stored at a particular list index via traditional C-like syntax:

Fig 3:

var l = mut [1, 2];
l[0] = 99;
print(l);

Output:

mut [99, 2]

Index-Out-Of-Bounds

As with most other languages that allow random-access to lists, you must be careful to always index into lists at valid positions. Any accesses of index, i, where i < 0 or i >= len(l) will result in the program Panicking (exiting in an unrecoverable way).

var l = mut [1, 2];
l[99] = 0;    # <-- Panic: Index-out-of-Bounds!

(Note: it's possible that as the language evolves, Claro may instead opt to make all list subscripting operations inherently safe by returning some structured result that models the possibility that the list index was invalid. This is ideal for safety, however, this would impose a global runtime overhead so the tradeoff is still being evaluated.)

Stdlib lists Module

A large variety of list operations are available in the stdlib's lists module. For example, the previous exapmle added an element to the end of a mutable list by using the lists::add procedure whose signature is the following in the lists.claro_module_api file:

# Appends the specified element to the end of this list.
consumer add<T>(l: mut [T], toAdd: T);

Empty Lists

It's worth noting that Claro has no way of inferring the correct element type of an empty list when it's type is not constrained by context. For example, the below variable declaration would be a compile-error:

var l = []; # Compiler Error: ambiguous type.

Empty List Type Inference By Later Usage (Will Never Be Supported)

You might think that Claro should be able to infer the type intended for this empty list based on the later usage of the variable it's assigned to. Claro takes the opinionated stance that this would be inherently undesirable behavior. Type inference shouldn't follow some esoteric resolution rules. It would be all too easy to implement a complex type inference system that can infer types far better than any real world human reader could - the end result would simply be enabling code to be written that is intrinsically difficult for your colleagues (and your future self) to read later on. This is an anti-goal of Claro.

The following will never be supported:

# Hypothetically, Claro could infer that the type of `l` is `mut [string]` based
# solely on the usage of `l` later on.
var l = mut [];

...a bunch of code...

append(l, "foo");