Expressions

Expressions are components that can be evaluated to a value.

Example:

1 + 1 # expression
-> 2  # result

An expression can be found in two forms:

• unary: meaning it contains only one component
• binary: meaning it contains two expressions, or operands, and one operator. i.e. <expr> <operator> <expr>

Example:

/* Unary expressions */
1
name
"foo"

/* Binary expressions */
age >= 18
1 AND 0

Here is a list of expressions supported by Genji.

Literal expressions

Any literal evaluates to the closest compatible type.

Strings

Strings are evaluated to the text type, which are utf-8 encoded.

Integers

Integers are evaluated into the smallest integer type that can contain the value.

Example:

• 10 will be evaluated to an int8, because is it bigger than -128 and smaller than 127
• -500 will be evaluated to an int16, because it is smaller than -128 but bigger than -32768

If an integer is bigger than the maximum int64 value or smaller than the minimum int64 value, it will be evaluated as a float64.

Floats

Floats are evaluated into the float64 type.

Booleans

Booleans are evaluated into the bool type.

Arrays

Arrays are evaluated into the array type.

Documents

Documents are evaluated into the document type.

Dot notation

Dot notations are evaluated into the value they refer to. They are used to select a value from a document. Their type will depend on the type of the value extracted from the document.

Given the following document:

{
    "recipes": 10,
    "cooking-time": {
        "eggs": [3, 6, 9]
    },
}

Here are examples on how dot notation is evaluated:

recipes
-> 10

`cooking-time`
->  {
        "eggs": [
            3,
            6,
            9
        ]
    }

`cooking-time`.eggs.2
-> 9

Operators

Genji provides a list of operators that can be used to compute operations with expressions. Operators are binary expressions, meaning they always take exactly two operands. It is possible though to combine multiple operators to create an evaluation tree.

Logical operators

Logical operators are operators that return a boolean under certain conditions.

An expression is truthy if it evaluates to a non zero-value of its type.

Comparison operators

These operators are used to compare values and evaluate to a boolean.

Examples:

1 = 1
-> true

1 > 2.5
-> false

3 IN [1, 2, 3]
-> true

Conversion during comparison

Prior to comparison, an implicit conversion is operated for the operands to be of the same type. Not all types can be compared together. When two incompatible types are compared, the comparison always returns false.

Example:

1 > "hello"
-> false

1 < "hello"
-> false

The comparison follows a list of rules that are executed in order:

• If one of the operands is NULL, use the Comparing with NULL rule
• If both operands are documents, use the Comparing documents rule
• If both operands are arrays, use the Comparing arrays rule
• If one of the operands is a boolean, use the Comparing with boolean rule
• If both operands are either text or blob, compare them byte per byte
• If both operands are integers, compare them together
• If both operands are numbers (integer or float), convert them to 64 float then compare them together.

In any other case, return false.

Comparing with NULL

Any comparison with NULL will return false, except in the following cases:

• NULL = NULL
• NULL >= NULL
• NULL <= NULL
• Using the != operator with a value other than NULL will return true. (Ex: 1 != null, foo != NULL, etc.)

Comparing documents

Only the = operator is supported when comparing documents.

A document is equal to another document if all of the following conditions are verified:

• it has the same number of fields
• all the fields of the first document are present in the other document
• every field of the first document is equal to the same field in the other document

{a: 1, b: 2} = {b: 2, a: 1}
-> true

{} = {}
-> true

Comparing arrays

Each elements of both arrays are compared one by one, index by index, until they are found not equal. The comparison is then determined by the result of the comparison between these two values.

[1, 2, 3] > [1, 1 + 1, 1]
-> true

Let’s break down the example above:

1. Index 0: 1 and 1 are equal, the comparison continues
2. Index 1: 2 and 1 + 1 are equal, the comparison continues
3. Index 2: 3 is greater then 1, the comparison stops and the first array is considered greater than the second one

Two empty arrays are considered equal:

[] = []
-> true

The size of arrays doesn’t matter, unless all the elements of the smallest one are equal to the other one. In that case the biggest array is considered greater.

[3] > [1, 100000]
-> true

[1, 2] < [1, 2, 3]
-> true

Comparing with a boolean

When comparing booleans together, there is a simple rule: true is greater than false.

true > false
-> true

false < true
-> true

If an operand is a boolean, but the other one is not, the other operand will be converted to a boolean, following these rules:

• TEXT: a non-empty text is equal to true, otherwise false
• BLOB: a non-empty blob is equal to true, otherwise false
• any number: if the number is different than 0, convert to true, otherwise false
• document: if the document contains at least one field, convert to true, otherwise false
• array: if the array contains at least one value, convert to true, otherwise false

Examples:

"foo" > false
-> true

"" = {} = [] = 0 = false
-> true

Arithmetic operators

Arithmetic operations are supported only for the following types:

• integer
• int8, int16, int32, int64
• float64
• duration
• bool

The case of NULL

Any arithmetic operation with one of the operand being NULL returns NULL.

NULL + 1
-> NULL

5 * 10 - NULL
-> NULL

Division rules

The division obeys a few rules depending on the types of the operands:

• Dividing two integers, always result in an integer
• Dividing by zero, returns NULL

Conversion rules

When running an arithmetic operation on two values of different types, an implicit conversion occurs, following this set of rules:

• if one of the operands is a boolean, convert to an integer
• if one of the operands is a float, convert the other one to float

Return type and overflow

The type of the result of an operation doesn’t necessarily match the type of the operands.

• The result of a float operation will always return a float
• The result of an integer operation will return the smallest integer type that can hold the return value, unless the return value is bigger than the maximum value of 64-bit integer. In that case, the return type will be a float

Evaluation tree and precedence

When parsed, an expression is turned into an evaluation tree so it is possible to combine operators to form complex expressions. The order in which these expressions are executed depends on the priority of the operator.

Here is the list of operators ordered by ascending precedence. Operators with higher precedence are executed before the ones with lower precedence

• OR
• AND
• =, !=, <, <=, >, >=
• +, -, |, ^
• *, /, %, &

Example:

3 + 4 * 2 > 10 AND 2 - 2 = false
-> true

This expression can be represented as the following tree:

.
└── AND
    ├── >
    │   ├── +
    │   │   ├── 3
    │   │   └── *
    │   │       ├── 4
    │   │       └── 2
    │   └── 10
    └── -
        ├── 2
        └── 2

The deepest branches will be executed first, recursively until reaching the root.

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