Primitives

Elara has a small set of built-in primitive types. These have no definition in the language and are hardcoded into the compiler. The primitive types are:

• Int_Prim: Represents integer numbers.
• Float_Prim: Represents floating-point numbers.
• Char_Prim: Represents single characters.
• IO_Prim: Represents input/output operations.
• String_Prim: Represents sequences of characters.
• (): The unit type

Each primitive type has a public facing alias defined in the Elara.Prim module, eg type Int = Int_Prim.

The compiler will always desugar relevant values (e.g. unit literals) to the primitive type. For example, integer literals are treated as being of type Int_Prim.

This system should probably be redesigned in the future - I like that primitives have normal definitions but we are currently very inconsistent internally about how they’re handled which causes a lot of spaghetti.