langur

if expressions

if cond1 { ... } [else if condn { ... } ...] [else { ... }]

Curly braces are always required.

The else if and the else sections are optional.

No parentheses are necessary around test conditions.

An if expression can be used inline to create a value.

An if expression always returns a value, even if it's nothing (null).

See also the very expressive and useful given expression.

shortened form if expressions

The shortened form uses parentheses, colons, and semicolons, and no extra keywords. This is more flexible than a ternary operator, as you can test multiple conditions.

The shortened form expects a single expression per section rather than a block (is more limited). The else if and the else sections are optional.

if test1 { 1 } else if test2 { 2 } else { 3 } # long form if expression if(test1: 1; test2: 2; 3) # shortened form if expression

This is a semantic convenience and the result is the same as the long form.

simple if

You can use a simple if expression, using a colon, in the following form, with the action on the same line.

if condition: action

This is convenient for conditionally using something such as break or next without needing curly braces, but does not allow for else if or else sections (not the same as a Python if statement).

You could write...

if .i div 2: break

or...

if .i div 2: .v x= 2

truthiness

"Truthiness" determines whether a logical test passes or fails. This includes the result of if expressions, logical operators, and alternate tests in given expressions.

The result of this "truthiness" may differ from the result of the toBool() and toBoolOrNull() functions, which serve a different purpose.

0.12.4 changed the evaluation of truthiness for strings, regexes, ranges and numbers.

The following are non-truthy. Anything else is truthy.
false
null
NaN (prior to 0.8)
empty array
empty hash
numeric zero
zero-length string
zero-length regex
descending range

Below is an example of using truthiness to test if a regex pattern matched anything and then using the results. (The matches() function returns an array of progressive matches, and an empty one if there are none.)

val .results = matches re/abc+/, .checkString if .results { ... }

Now, with assignment decoupling, we can write something like the following.

if val .alias, .name = submatch($re/^(\.idregex;)\\s*;\\s*(\.idregex;)/, .row) { # use .alias and .name here ... }

Note that prior to 0.10, you would use parentheses as follows.

if val (.alias, .name) = submatch($re/^(\.idregex;)\\s*;\\s*(\.idregex;)/, .row) { ... }

scope within if expressions

Each section of an if expression is scoped, as illustrated below.

if ... { val .x = 123; .x + .y } else { val .x = 789; .x + .y } # each .x different, and not seen after if expression

Variables declared within test conditions are available to the action block that goes with the test, but not after it.

if val .matches = submatch(RE/(?i)-(\d+\.\d+\.\d+)\.txt/, .row) { return .matches[1] } else if val .matches = submatch(RE/(?i)-(\w+)\.txt/, .row) { # this .matches different than the .matches in previous section of if expression ... } # neither version of .matches available after if expression

val .x = 123 if true { val .x = 7 # .x == 7 } # .x == 123

var .y = 123 if true { .y = 7 # .y == 7 } # .y == 7 (was mutable and not redeclared)