Update the rules for member access:
- Simple member access `a.b`
- If `a` names a scope, performs name lookup and optionally `impl`
lookup.
- Otherwise, `a.b` is shorthand for `a.(typeof(a).b)` and always
performs instance binding.
- Compound member access `a.(m)` does optional `impl` lookup and always
performs instance binding.
- This is a change from only performing instance binding if `m` is an
instance member.
- New operation `a.impl(m)` is introduced. It always performs `impl`
lookup, and nothing else.
- The `BindToType` interface is removed. Only instance binding may be
customized (using the `BindToValue` and `BindToRef` interfaces).
As a result, member access doesn't use whether the right operand is an
instance member anymore. Instead, instance binding is performed whenever
it would be plausible, and a new syntax is used to opt out.
Assisted-by: Gemini via Antigravity
---------
Co-authored-by: Josh L <josh11b@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Richard Smith <richard@metafoo.co.uk>
The declarations in a `match_first` must always be in the same file as
the first owning declaration, in order to maintain a consistent view of
impl lookup across all files.
This should handle over-long lines. I had tried to make the normalize
method work, but it doesn't seem promising and so let's at least enable
this version.
Assisted-by: Antigravity with Gemini
This adds the new restrictions introduced for `observe` declarations
inside `interface` definitions to the docs.
---------
Co-authored-by: Christopher Di Bella <cjdb.ns@gmail.com>
https://docs.carbon-lang.dev/docs/design/expressions/#operators
Escaping `|` is needed to prevent markdown table interpreting it as a
cell edge, however using `\|` in backticks shows the backslash too.
Solution: use `<code>` instead. This overflows the `|` table cell but it
seems to render correctly anyway.
Co-authored-by: David Blaikie <dblaikie@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Richard Smith <richard@metafoo.co.uk>
Require rewrite and same-type constraints that do not depend on `.Self`
to be satisfied when a facet type is identified, since those constraints
may not be found later.
Document the phase of associated constants, which the discussions of
contextual phase defaults never covered: an associated constant is
always a checked generic binding. This is deliberately not presented as
a contextual default, because no other phase is possible for the
construct; correspondingly, no phase keyword (including `template`) is
allowed on one. Also rework the associated constants section of the
design README where the migration left a non-sequitur ("set to
compile-time values ... and so are defined using a `let` declaration"):
describe the `let` syntax and the binding's contextual phase separately.
Use consistent terminology for bindings versus constants. Bindings are
"checked" or "template" (generic) bindings, replacing the "symbolic
binding" and bare "generic binding" terms, so "symbolic" now only
describes constants and values. The "Symbolic facet bindings" section of
the generics details becomes "Checked facet bindings". The
expression-phase terms "symbolic constant" and "template constant" are
unchanged, and the binding-pattern definitions now name the constant
each kind binds. Template bindings are additionally described as
dependent and late checked, with each instantiation providing the
binding's value.
Also normalize the remaining "regular parameter" mentions to "runtime
parameter" to match the binding terminology, and describe the
compile-time "let template" as introducing a template generic binding
"T: C" whose uses are template constants.
Assisted-by: Claude Code
Carbon currently requires a comment to be the only non-whitespace on its
line. A `//` comment that follows other content on a line, called a
_trailing comment_, is a lexer error. This proposal removes that
restriction, allowing a comment to follow other content on a line.
Everything else about comments is unchanged: a comment still begins with
`//`, still requires whitespace after the `//`, and still runs to the
end of the line. Carbon continues to provide only line comments; no
block or intra-line comments are added.
Three observations motivate the change. First, trailing comments are
well suited to short _annotations_ attached to a specific entity or
value on a line. Second, the lexer design now makes it trivial to lex
trailing comments, and in fact requires extra logic and potentially cost
to reject them. Third, C++ code routinely uses trailing comments, so
allowing them lets Carbon carry the layout of migrated code over
directly, rather than reworking each comment to read well in a different
structure.
Implementation notes (beyond the proposal's design):
Keeping trailing comments cheap to lex required a few supporting
changes, all of which keep the cost off the lexer's hot path:
- The lexer already dispatches `//` to comment lexing wherever it
appears, so classifying a comment as trailing is a single O(1) check of
whether the `//` is the line's first non-whitespace (`start + indent`).
The hot comment path is otherwise unchanged.
- That check relies on each line's recorded indentation being its real
leading whitespace. Multi-line string literals previously recorded the
column where the literal opened for the lines they span; they now record
the true (closing-delimiter) indentation instead.
- Parser error recovery (`SkipPastLikelyEnd`) had relied on that
opening-column indentation to keep tokens following a multi-line string
literal attached to the same construct. It now reconstructs that
relationship directly by consulting the line on which the literal
opened, including when other tokens follow the closing delimiter (such
as `''' + "more"`). This is on the cold recovery path.
- `CommentData` records the trailing bit in the high bit of its length
field, keeping it at 8 bytes.
Assisted-by: Claude Code
This proposal removes the `:!` syntax for generics and templates in
favor of keywords (`generic`, `template`, `runtime`) and contextual
defaults for phase. It also replaces `:?` with `fwd` and introduces
`exttype` for extended types.
Assisted-by: Antigravity with Gemini, and Claude
---------
Co-authored-by: Geoff Romer <gromer@google.com>
Rumdl already appears to have _significantly_ fewer bugs than prettier,
and a solid LSP for editor integration.
The tool is: https://github.com/rvben/rumdl/
I've separated out the change across three commits for easier review.
The configuration tries to match the existing formatting, the changes to
the all the files are to correct issues found by the new tool.
Assisted-by: Antigravity with Gemini
---------
Co-authored-by: Richard Smith <richard@metafoo.co.uk>
Incorporates changes from these proposals:
- #2022
- #2875
- #3262
- #3763
- #3848
- #5434
A small amount of updating was done to lambdas.md and variadics.md to
harmonize with these changes.
Assisted-by: Gemini via Antigravity
---------
Co-authored-by: Josh L <josh11b@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Geoff Romer <gromer@google.com>
Also:
- Introduce `buf` so that existing examples using arrays can be updated
to use it.
- Update the examples linked to on the Carbon front page to something
closer to what we expect, moving away from old array syntax. Uses
`slice` though that name hasn't been settled. Updating the SVGs actually
referenced will need to be done as a separate step.
- Update links to the expression operators while I'm touching that
section.
Assisted-by: Gemini via Antigravity
---------
Co-authored-by: Josh L <josh11b@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Nicholas Bishop <nbishop@nbishop.net>
Implements proposal #7016: `self` moves from the deduced implicit list
(`fn F[self: Self]()`) to the front of the explicit list. Its type may
be written explicitly (`fn F(self: Self)`) or omitted, in which case it
defaults to `Self` (`fn F(self)`, `fn F(ref self)`); `self` in the
implicit list is rejected.
Throughout checking, `self` is modeled as the first explicit parameter.
Because a method is just a function whose first parameter is `self`, it
can also be called as an ordinary function with the receiver passed
explicitly (`Type.M(obj, ...)`), not only as `obj.M(...)`. A new
`SemIR::CallArgParamPatterns` helper chooses the parameters matched
against the explicit arguments, excluding a leading `self` only when it
is supplied as a method-call receiver; arity checking, conversion, and
generic deduction use it. The resulting SemIR and lowering are
unchanged: `self` is still `call_param0`, and witnesses, thunks, and
vtables are unaffected.
An omitted `self` type is parsed as a `SelfBindingPattern` node with no
type expression; checking synthesizes the `Self` type so it behaves
exactly like `self: Self`. However, the exact spelling used must match
between a forward declaration and a definition, following #3763's rules
around declaration matching.
Generated functions, thunks, and C++ interop import/export build `self`
as the first explicit parameter, and the `self`-type override (e.g.
Derived->Base for a virtual override) applies to the explicit `self`.
Placement is validated by new diagnostics: `SelfInImplicitParamList`,
`SelfNotFirstParam`, and `SelfOutsideParamList`. The benchmark source
generator and the documentation adopt the `(self)` shorthand; the
prelude, the examples, and the test data are migrated in the following
commits.
Assisted-by: Claude Code with Claude Opus 4.7
---------
Co-authored-by: josh11b <15258583+josh11b@users.noreply.github.com>
This proposal clarifies some unclear aspects of the interop support for
object-like macros. In particular:
- Carbon supports importing an object-like macro if its definition can
be evaluated as a constant expression, without further restrictions on
that definition.
- When importing the result of that evaluation, C++ lvalues are imported
as references, and rvalues are imported as values.
Update the orphan rule to require a name to be defined within, or by,
the same scope as the impl declaration. Since libraries can not be
nested, this also enforces the old rule, but rejects more impl
declarations. In particular, it rejects an impl declaration in a generic
context which would have no way to provide a value for the generic
bindings it inherited from its enclosing scope, making the impl
unusable.
Discussed in open discussion
[2026-05-04](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mjllGO3ZCL4qGt9uJHUtcxKoHAGEY7Y999ie4EtBWB8/edit?tab=t.3ifnhz83n73d#heading=h.p45zfugbmdih).
Instead of requiring just one to have a designator, require each one.
You can't write `(type where A == B) & (type where C == .Self)` because
`A == B` has no designator. If the two facet types are combined into a
single `where` syntactically, their meaning does not change, and what we
allow should not change either. That is, `type where A == B and C ==
.Self` should be rejected since `A == B` does not contain a designator.
The design is also updated to make this clear.
Note that #7266 has already updated the toolchain for `char`, but not
`Core.CharLiteral`.
Assisted-by: Gemini via Antigravity
---------
Co-authored-by: Josh L <josh11b@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Geoff Romer <gromer@google.com>
We've talked about adding the title to the filename several times over
the years and it seems really valuable. This requires us to compute a
"slug" for the title spelling that can be part of the filename.
Beyond that, we crossed 7000 recently, and so it seems likely that we
will need to add digits sooner rather than later here, so this goes
ahead and moves us to 6 digits so we don't have to adjust again for a
reasonable length of time.
To implement this and ensure we can sustain it going forward this adds a
tool to our pre-commit that validates (and corrects if needed) the
filename.
In order to update everything and keep links working, there are a _lot_
of changes, but the most interesting for direct review are in
`proposals/scripts`.
Assisted-by: Antigravity with Gemini
---------
Co-authored-by: Richard Smith <richard@metafoo.co.uk>
Update the syntax for class (and interface/`impl`) methods to move
`self` into
the parameter parentheses `()` and make the type in its binding optional
(defaulting to `Self`). Introduce the `static` keyword for non-instance
member
variables to indicate static storage. Reflects the decision in leads
issue
[#6931](https://github.com/carbon-language/carbon-lang/issues/6931).
Updates the directly relevant design, but leaves a systematic update of
examples
to a future PR.
Assisted-by: Antigravity with Gemini
---------
Co-authored-by: Geoff Romer <gromer@google.com>
Co-authored-by: Richard Smith <richard@metafoo.co.uk>
Allow partially identifying a named constraint inside its definition,
and allow the query self in an impl lookup with a non-identified facet
type to be used to provide witnesses from that facet type. This allows
impl lookup on `Self` to find `require` decls that have been written
earlier in the named constraint, so that the named constraint to be used
to provide witnesses from inside its definition.
But disallow an incomplete named constraint from being part of an
identified facet type, to prevent forming facet values that store a
witness set that can be invalidated as the named constraint adds
interfaces to its identified facet type.
This was discussed in open discussion [on
2026-03-12](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mjllGO3ZCL4qGt9uJHUtcxKoHAGEY7Y999ie4EtBWB8/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.1dvbbrp5a6t3).
---------
Co-authored-by: Richard Smith <richard@metafoo.co.uk>
This proposal defines the concrete technical mechanisms for C++
interoperability. It specifies the precise syntax and semantics for
importing
C++ APIs. This includes the `import Cpp library "..."` and implicitly
importing
C++ built-in entities, and the establishment of the `Cpp` package as the
dedicated namespace for all imported entities.
This PR also includes high level language C++ Interop design and the
basics of importing C++ APIs and function calling.
Leaving plenty of TODOs to make it easier to fill in more details in
followups.
Part of #4666.
---------
Co-authored-by: Richard Smith <richard@metafoo.co.uk>
Co-authored-by: Carbon Infra Bot <carbon-external-infra@google.com>
This proposal introduces the concept of a _form_, which is a
generalization of
"type" that encompasses all of the information about an expression
that's
visible to the type system, including type and expression category.
Forms can be
composed into _tuple forms_ and _struct forms_, which lets us track the
categories of individual tuple and struct literal elements.
The proposal PR also adds `ref` bindings to the pattern matching
documentation,
but that is not part of the proposal itself; it's just bringing the
documentation
up to date with proposal
[#5434](https://github.com/carbon-language/carbon-lang/pull/5434).
---------
Co-authored-by: josh11b <15258583+josh11b@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Chandler Carruth <chandlerc@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Richard Smith <richard@metafoo.co.uk>
Co-authored-by: Carbon Infra Bot <carbon-external-infra@google.com>
This proposal removes the definition of the term "value binding" as a
primitive
category conversion from reference to value, replacing it with the term
"value
acquisition". The other meaning of "value binding", a binding declared
by a
value binding pattern, is unchanged.
Proposal [p5337](https://docs.carbon-lang.dev/proposals/p5337.html)
renamed and introduced new syntax for extending an interface or named
constraint with another.
- The `require` keyword can now be modified by `extend`, instead of it
being a separate thing altogether.
- Interfaces can `extend impl as I` to gain the members of `I` and
implicitly use them to implement `I`. Named constraints can not.
The `Identity` example is meant to not know anything about the type of
the object its passing through, but it ends up making a copy of it. Fix
the example to not by using a pointer.
~~Added explanatory comment about math package usage~~
Changed Main() entry point to Run() as per design and toolchain
This small update of front page code snippets will add
explanatory comment to highlight that provided Carbon code
is hypothetical and meant to show the look and feel of the language.
Also it delivers change of Main() to Run() to
highlight correct entry point for Carbon lang.
Updates the documentation under `docs/design/` to use `ref` instead of
`addr` after their removal in #5434. Care was taken to manually clean up
edge cases and, in a couple cases, surrounding text (see
3d72c49bb75c0f40ca7e8114b6a1369b941e1697). After this change, there are
no matches for `addr(?!ess)` in `docs/design/`.
Closes#6032
Require language design proposals to either update the design documents
to
reflect the proposed changes, or add "TODO" comments to mark where those
changes
will be needed, with links back to the proposal. This is intended to
ensure that
the design documentation accurately informs readers about the current
language
design, without excessively burdening the proposal process.
---------
Co-authored-by: Richard Smith <richard@metafoo.co.uk>
# Changes
## Terminology Updates
This PR updates documentation to align with the expression phase
terminology changes introduced in
[#2964](https://github.com/carbon-language/carbon-lang/pull/2964):
* **"symbolic value" → "symbolic constant"**: Updated all remaining
instances using find-and-replace
## Scope of Changes
* Focused on documentation that predates the July 2023 terminology
change
* Used git blame history to identify instances likely using the old
"constant" definition
* Manually reviewed each "constant" usage to distinguish between:
- New definition (unchanged): the broader category including symbolic
constants
Closes
[#5599](https://github.com/carbon-language/carbon-lang/issues/5599)
---------
Co-authored-by: Hitesh Joshi <hitesh@mitsu.care>
This proposal renames the syntax used to mark an overriding definition
of a virtual method from `impl fn` to `override fn` to avoid ambiguity:
besides indicating an overriding virtual function, it can be parsed as
an "impl" declaration when the construct following "impl" begins with a
lambda introduced by "fn".
Closes#5711
---------
Co-authored-by: Richard Smith <richard@metafoo.co.uk>
Dana Jansens
Chandler Carruth
Özgür T. ÖnsoyandChristopher Di Bella
Jon Ross-Perkins
Burak EmirandDana Jansens
gleb
Calvin
Hitesh JoshiandHitesh Joshi
Elliott KaltandRichard Smith