Variable Declaration

Variables are declared with the var keyword, optionally initialised, and optionally annotated with a type hint (see next section).

var count = 0                     # Initialised
var name = "Alice"
var unset                         # Defaults to null
var items: array = [1, 2, 3]      # With type hint
var label: string = 42            # Coerced to "42"

An untyped variable that is declared without an initialiser has the value null. Typed variables must have initial values:

var label                       # label is null

var label: string               # INCORRECT: typed variable has no initializer

var label: string = "foo"       # CORRECT: typed variables must be initialized

Type hints

Optional type annotations may follow the variable name, separated by a colon. When a type hint is present, the assigned value is coerced to that type:

var name: type = value  # name is a typed variable

Valid type keywords: number, string, boolean, array, object.

Coercion rules

Target Type	From Number	From String	From Boolean
number	(no change)	Parsed as number	true → 1, false → 0
string	String representation	(no change)	"true" or "false"
boolean	0 → false, else true	"true" → true, "false" → false only	(no change)

For string to boolean coercion, the match is case-insensitive, so true, True and TRUE all work.

For array and object type hints, there is no cross-type coercion - the value must already be of the matching type. Assigning a non-matching type to a typed variable of type array or object results in an error.