Syntax Overview

Quartz uses a familiar C-like syntax with curly braces, semicolons, and dot notation. If you've used Java, C++, JavaScript, or similar languages, you'll feel right at home.

Basic Structure

A Quartz program consists of imports, declarations, and statements:

// Import modules
import system.io as io;
import system.math as math;

// Declare variables
let message = "Hello, World!";
var counter = 0;

// Execute statements
io.out.println(message);
counter = counter + 1;

Comments

Quartz supports single-line comments:

// This is a single-line comment
let x = 42; // Inline comment

Variables

Immutable Variables (let)

let name = "Alice";      // String
let age = 30;            // Integer
let pi = 3.14159;        // Double
let active = true;       // Boolean

Mutable Variables (var)

var count = 0;
count = count + 1;  // OK - var is mutable

let fixed = 10;
fixed = 20;  // Error - let is immutable

Type Annotations (Optional)

let x: int = 42;
let name: string = "Bob";
let rate: double = 0.15;
let flag: bool = false;

Data Types

Operators

Arithmetic

let a = 10 + 5;    // Addition: 15
let b = 10 - 5;    // Subtraction: 5
let c = 10 * 5;    // Multiplication: 50
let d = 10 / 5;    // Division: 2
let e = 10 % 3;    // Modulo: 1

Comparison

let eq = 5 == 5;    // Equal: true
let ne = 5 != 3;    // Not equal: true
let lt = 3 < 5;     // Less than: true
let gt = 5 > 3;     // Greater than: true
let le = 3 <= 3;    // Less or equal: true
let ge = 5 >= 5;    // Greater or equal: true

Logical

let and_result = true && false;  // false
let or_result = true || false;   // true
let not_result = !true;          // false

Compound Assignment

var x = 10;
x += 5;   // x = 15
x -= 3;   // x = 12
x *= 2;   // x = 24
x /= 4;   // x = 6

Control Flow

If Statements

if (condition) {
// code
} else if (other_condition) {
// code
} else {
// code
}

While Loops

var i = 0;
while (i < 10) {
io.out.println(i);
i += 1;
}

For Loops

// For-in loop over array indices
let items = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
for (i in items) {
io.out.println(items[i]);
}

// Traditional for loop
for (var i = 0; i < 10; i += 1) {
io.out.println(i);
}

Loop Control

while (true) {
if (done) {
break;      // Exit loop
}
if (skip) {
continue;   // Skip to next iteration
}
}

Functions

// Function definition
fn greet(name: string) {
io.out.println("Hello,", name);
}

// Function with return type
fn add(a: int, b: int) -> int {
return a + b;
}

// Function call
greet("World");
let sum = add(5, 3);

Lambdas

// Lambda expression
let double = (x) => x * 2;

// Using lambdas with collections
import system.collection as c;

let numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
let doubled = c.map(numbers, (x) => x * 2);
let evens = c.filter(numbers, (x) => x % 2 == 0);

Classes

class Person {
string name;
int age;

fn greet() {
io.out.println("Hi, I'm", name);
}

fn haveBirthday() {
age += 1;
}
}

let person = new Person();
person.name = "Alice";
person.age = 30;
person.greet();

Imports

// Import with alias (recommended)
import system.io as io;
import system.math as math;

// Using imported modules
io.out.println("Hello!");
let sqrt = math.sqrt(16);

📝 Note Modules with names that are keywords (like string) must be imported with an alias.

Arrays & Dictionaries

Arrays

let numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];

// Indexing
let first = numbers[0];     // 1
let last = numbers[4];      // 5

// Modification
numbers[0] = 10;

Dictionaries

let config = {
"name": "MyApp",
"version": "1.0",
"debug": true
};

// Access
let name = config["name"];  // "MyApp"

// Modification
config["version"] = "2.0";

Exception Handling

try {
// Code that might throw
throw new ValueError("Invalid input");
} catch (ValueError e) {
io.out.println("Caught error:", e.message);
} finally {
// Always executed
io.out.println("Cleanup");
}

Complete Example

import system.io as io;
import system.math as math;
import system.string as str;

class Calculator {
string name;

fn add(a: int, b: int) -> int {
return a + b;
}

fn sqrt(x: double) -> double {
return math.sqrt(x);
}

fn describe() {
io.out.println("Calculator:", str.uppercase(name));
}
}

// Main program
let calc = new Calculator();
calc.name = "sciCalc";

calc.describe();
io.out.println("5 + 3 =", calc.add(5, 3));
io.out.println("√16 =", calc.sqrt(16.0));

// Working with collections
let numbers = [1, 4, 9, 16, 25];
for (i in numbers) {
let n = numbers[i];
io.out.println("√" + n + " =", math.sqrt(n));
}