Encoding - The Nitrate Programming Language

Nitrate source code is UTF-8 encoded, case-sensitive, and whitespace-insensitive.

Source File Properties

  • Unicode: The whole file is encoded in UTF-8.
  • Whitespace: One or more whitespace characters are treated as a single whitespace character.
  • Case Sensitivity: No implicit case conversion is performed.
  • File Size: The maximum size of a source file is 2^64 bytes (16 exabytes).
  • File Extension: The file extension for Nitrate source code is .n.
  • End of File: All source code files must end with one or more U+000A (new line) characters.

Shebang Line

The # freestanding character begins a line comment. The first line of a source file may be a shebang line. The shebang line is a comment that specifies the path to the Nitrate interpreter. If the shebang is used, it must be the first line of the file and must be in the following format:

#!/path/to/qpkg run