Type Safety

Updated: 2020/9/18 by

2 min read

The Cadence programming language is a type-safe language.

When assigning a new value to a variable, the value must be the same type as the variable. For example, if a variable has type Bool, it can only be assigned a value that has type Bool, and not for example a value that has type Int.

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// Declare a variable that has type `Bool`.
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var a = true
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// Invalid: cannot assign a value that has type `Int` to a variable which has type `Bool`.
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//
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a = 0

When passing arguments to a function, the types of the values must match the function parameters' types. For example, if a function expects an argument that has type Bool, only a value that has type Bool can be provided, and not for example a value which has type Int.

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fun nand(_ a: Bool, _ b: Bool): Bool {
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    return !(a && b)
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}
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nand(false, false)  // is `true`
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// Invalid: The arguments of the function calls are integers and have type `Int`,
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// but the function expects parameters booleans (type `Bool`).
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//
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nand(0, 0)

Types are not automatically converted. For example, an integer is not automatically converted to a boolean, nor is an Int32 automatically converted to an Int8, nor is an optional integer Int? automatically converted to a non-optional integer Int, or vice-versa.

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fun add(_ a: Int8, _ b: Int8): Int8 {
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    return a + b
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}
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// The arguments are not declared with a specific type, but they are inferred
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// to be `Int8` since the parameter types of the function `add` are `Int8`.
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add(1, 2)  // is `3`
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// Declare two constants which have type `Int32`.
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//
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let a: Int32 = 3_000_000_000
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let b: Int32 = 3_000_000_000
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// Invalid: cannot pass arguments which have type `Int32` to parameters which have type `Int8`.
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//
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add(a, b)