On 4-Jun-09, at 11:31 AM, tobeythorn wrote:
> --- In
iolanguage@..., Jeremy Tregunna
> <jeremy.tregunna@...> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 4-Jun-09, at 10:31 AM, tobeythorn wrote:
>>
>>> I've been trying to understand how Io works and what goes on under
>>> the hood. I'm becoming more and more impressed with it, but am a
>>> little confused about a a few things.
>>>
>>> What are the statements 123 and "this is a word" and TRUE, FALSE,
>>> and NIL? Are they messages, or objects, or messages routed to a
>>> special built in hidden object that constructs these objects?
>>
>> I don't understand what you mean with "123" and "this is a word"
>> please clarify that.
>>
>> However, TRUE, FALSE and NIL are just constants that point at
>> singleton objects that are created in the runtime on startup.
>>
>
> What I mean is the construction of numbers and strings.
That's part of the parsing subsystem. When the lexer matches certain
patterns (like numbers or strings), it will create a token of that
particular type. When the parser gets it, it'll create an object of
that type with that value. They are still messages, as everything the
lexer processes (except comments, though that could be changed) are
messages.
Regards,
Jeremy Tregunna
jeremy.tregunna@...
