About this document

Note: This document is a draft! Several of Nim’s features may need more precise wording. This manual is constantly evolving into a proper specification.

Note: The experimental features of Nim are covered here.

Note: Assignments, moves, and destruction are specified in the destructors document.

This document describes the lexis, the syntax, and the semantics of the Nim language.

To learn how to compile Nim programs and generate documentation see the Compiler User Guide and the DocGen Tools Guide.

The language constructs are explained using an extended BNF, in which (a)* means 0 or more a’s, a+ means 1 or more a’s, and (a)? means an optional a. Parentheses may be used to group elements.

& is the lookahead operator; &a means that an a is expected but not consumed. It will be consumed in the following rule.

The |, / symbols are used to mark alternatives and have the lowest precedence. / is the ordered choice that requires the parser to try the alternatives in the given order. / is often used to ensure the grammar is not ambiguous.

Non-terminals start with a lowercase letter, abstract terminal symbols are in UPPERCASE. Verbatim terminal symbols (including keywords) are quoted with ‘. An example:

ifStmt = 'if' expr ':' stmts ('elif' expr ':' stmts)* ('else' stmts)?

The binary ^* operator is used as a shorthand for 0 or more occurrences separated by its second argument; likewise ^+ means 1 or more occurrences: a ^+ b is short for a (b a)* and a ^* b is short for (a (b a)*)?. Example:

arrayConstructor = '[' expr ^* ',' ']'

Other parts of Nim, like scoping rules or runtime semantics, are described informally.