Sonolus Wiki

03. Data Types

In this chapter, we will go over data types in Sonolus and Sonolus.js.

Data Type in Sonolus

In Sonolus, value node can only be of float type, which is number type in JavaScript/TypeScript.

However, it does have a concept of boolean and uses number to represent it: 0 means false, and anything else means true. For functions like Equal and Greater, they will always return 1 as true.

Data Types in Sonolus.js

In Sonolus.js, we explicitly separate these two to provide type checking support using TypeScript. This allows us to write less error prone code.

For example, if we use 5 as a condition for If which only accepts boolean, TypeScript will catch it and throw an error.

src/test.ts
console.log(visualize(If(5, DebugLog(true), DebugLog(false))))

// error TS2345: Argument of type '5' is not assignable to parameter of type 'Code<boolean>'.

console.log(visualize(If(5, DebugLog(true), DebugLog(false))))

// JavaScript does not provide type checking.

This way we can quickly realize: "Aha, I meant to test for if 5 is greater than 0!"

src/test.ts
console.log(visualize(If(Greater(5, 0), DebugLog(true), DebugLog(false))))

// Result:
// If(Greater(5, 0), DebugLog(1), DebugLog(0))

console.log(visualize(If(Greater(5, 0), DebugLog(true), DebugLog(false))))

// Result:
// If(Greater(5, 0), DebugLog(1), DebugLog(0))

Explicit Conversion of Data Types

Sometimes it is useful to explicitly convert between the two types, we can do so with num and bool utility functions:

src/test.ts
console.log(visualize(If(bool(5), DebugLog(true), DebugLog(false))))

// Result:
// If(5, DebugLog(1), DebugLog(0))

console.log(visualize(If(bool(5), DebugLog(true), DebugLog(false))))

// Result:
// If(5, DebugLog(1), DebugLog(0))

Do keep in mind with explicit conversion, you need to think carefully about how it will work.

In this case, the code no longer tests for "if 5 is greater than 0" but rather tests for "if 5 is not equal to 0."