Integer literals

Whole numbers of unbounded size, written in decimal or any radix.

An integer literal denotes an Int — an arbitrary-precision signed integer. There is no fixed width and no silent overflow: an integer grows as large as it needs to, limited only by memory.

Decimal literals #

The plain form is a run of decimal digits. Underscores may be inserted between digits as visual separators; they are ignored.

say 42;
say 1_000_000;

42
1000000

An underscore is only allowed between two digits — not leading, trailing, or doubled. 1_000 is fine; _1, 1_, and 1__0 are parse errors.

Radix prefixes #

Binary, octal, and hexadecimal literals are written with a 0b, 0o, or 0x prefix. Hex digits are case-insensitive.

say 0xFF;
say 0o17;
say 0b1010;

255
15
10

Arbitrary radix #

The :radix<digits> form writes a literal in any base from 2 to 36. The digits above 9 are the letters a–z.

say :16<ff>;
say :2<1010>;

255
10

Unbounded size #

Integer arithmetic never overflows into an approximate result — the value stays exact however large it gets.

say 2 ** 100;
say (10 ** 30).WHAT;

1267650600228229401496703205376
(Int)

Notes #

• The type is always Int; there is no separate machine-word integer type at the language level. (Native int exists only as an explicit container type.)
• A leading - is the numeric negation operator applied to the literal, not part of the literal itself — this matters only in rare precedence corners.