7. Variables

Variables are mutable containers for values. Because Jam is statically typed, every variables has exactly one type. It is however never necessary to explicitly specify the type of a variable, as the compiler will infer one.

# Explicitly declare `x` as an integer and assign 12
x:Int = 12

# Let the compiler infer the type of `greeting` to be  `String`
greeting = "Hello"

Note

Although by design a variable’s type never needs to be defined, this is not the case yet.

Jam does not differentiate between a declaration and an assignment. Variables are implicitly created on their first assignment.

# assignment that implicitly creates a variable
a = 9
# Just an assignment
a = 4

A variable’s type may not change. Therefore assignment a value not compatible with its type is not allowed.

a = 9
# TypeError:
# Cannot assign `"Hello World"` of type String to variable `a` of type `Int`
a = "String"