Nim - Variable

Nim is a statically typed programming language. Any variable must be declared before use and assigned a value.

It provides three keywords for NIM variables

• var - create mutable variables
• let - create immutable variables
• const - constants and fixed values

How to declare a variable in Nim

a variable declared using the below syntax

var variable: datatype
or
var variable: datatype =  value

var is a keyword variable is a valid identifier datatype is an inbuilt type provided by the language.

Example:

var number: int
var number: int=123

Nim provides Type Inference, You can declare the variable type by assigning the value

var number=123

Here number type is inferred from the value assigned. value is of int type.

How to declare multiple variables

There are two syntax ways of declaring multiple variables.

one way using a comma separator

var a,b: int

variables a and b are declared of type int. With this, You can declare multiple variables of the same type only.

Another way to use multiple variables with different types

var
    a,b: int
    str1,str2: string

Variables are declared with indentation with two spaces on each line with the same type.

Variable scopes

variable scopes allow the use of the variable based on the place where the variable is declared.

There are two types of variable scopes.

• Local Scope: Variables declared in a functional or block scopes
• Global Scope: Variables declared globally

nim var variable

Variables declared with var are values that can be changed at any time, but the type can not be changed

Valid var declarations

var str = "one"
str = "two"

invalid declarations

var str = "one"
str = 1     # Error

nim let variable

let is another way to declare a variable similar to the var keyword.

Let allows you to declare a single variable. and once the variable is declared, not able to assign the value, but you can assign compile time expressions

In the below, the str variable is declared assigned with one at compile time. if you assign a new value, It throws an error

let str = "one"
str = "two"     # Error

let allows you to assign expression, const does not allow constant expression value

let str = compile time expressions valie
const str =expression      # Error

Nim Constant variables

const keyword allows you to declare a value with an assigned value once. and variable is immutable which means, its value can not be changed once declared.

const n = 12
n = 20         # error

variables are assigned and evaluated at compile time and their value never changes at runtime.

Variable default values

Variables declared in Nim has default value based on datatype if there is no assigned value.