statements.md

Statements

In Arcane, statements are the building blocks that control the flow of program execution. The interpreter (as defined in arcane.c) handles several statement types:

• Print Statement:
  Outputs an expression to the console.
  Example:

  println("Hello, World!");

• Return Statement:
  Exits the current execution flow and optionally returns a value.
  Example:

  return 42;

• Conditional Statement (if/else):
  Evaluates a condition and executes a block of statements if true. An optional else block can run when the condition is false.

  if (x > 0) {
      println("Positive");
  } else {
      println("Non-positive");
  }

• Loop Statements:

  • For Loop:
    Executes a block repeatedly with initializer, condition, and post-expression.

    for (i = 0; i < 10; i += 1) {
        println(i);
    }
    ```C

  • While Loop:
    Continues execution as long as a condition remains true.

    while (x > 0) {
        println(x);
        x -= 1;
    }
    

• Control Flow Statements:

  • Continue: Skips to the next iteration of a loop.
  • Break: Exits the current loop immediately.

These statement forms are parsed by the parse_statement function in arcane.c. Each statement must end with a semicolon where required, and blocks are enclosed within braces {}.

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