Runes

Overview

Many languages have a type like char which represents a character, usually ASCII, since the size of char is defined as 1 byte.

V does not have a char type as such (the u8 type can be used instead), instead V has a rune type.

A rune represents a single Unicode character and is an alias for u32. To denote them, use ` (backticks):

rocket := `🚀`

A rune can be converted to a UTF-8 string by using the .str() method.

rocket := `🚀` println(rocket.str()) // 🚀

A rune can be converted to UTF-8 bytes by using the .bytes() method.

rocket := `🚀` println(rocket.bytes()) // [240, 159, 154, 128]

Hex, Unicode, and Octal escape sequences also work in a rune literal:

println(`\x61`) // a println(`\141`) // a println(`\u0061`) // a // multibyte literals work too println(`\u2605`) // ★ println(`\u2605`.bytes()) // [226, 152, 133] println(`\xe2\x98\x85`.bytes()) // [226, 152, 133] println(`\342\230\205`.bytes()) // [226, 152, 133]

Note that rune literals use the same escape syntax as strings, but they can only hold one Unicode character. Therefore, if your code does not specify a single Unicode character, you will receive an error at compile time.

Also remember that strings are indexed as bytes, not runes, so beware:

rocket_string := '🚀' println(rocket_string[0] != `🚀`) // true println('aloha!'[0]) // 97 println('aloha!'[0].ascii_str()) // a

A string can be converted to runes by the .runes() method.

hello := 'Hello 👋' hello_runes := hello.runes() println(hello_runes) // [`H`, `e`, `l`, `l`, `o`, ` `, `👋`] println(hello_runes.string()) // Hello 👋

Runes

# Overview

Overview