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Literals

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Unit literal

The only existing literal for the Unit type is the value ().

The Unit value is commonly used as an argument to callables, either because no other arguments need to be passed or to delay execution. It is also used as return value when no other value needs to be returned, which is the case for unitary operations, that is, operations that support the Adjoint and/or the Controlled functor.

Int literals

Value literals for the Int type can be expressed in binary, octal, decimal, or hexadecimal representation. Literals expressed in binary are prefixed with 0b, with 0o for octal, and with 0x for hexadecimal. There is no prefix for the commonly used decimal representation.

Representation Value Literal
Binary 0b101010
Octal 0o52
Decimal 42
Hexadecimal 0x2a

BigInt literals

Value literals for the BigInt type are always postfixed with L and can be expressed in binary, octal, decimal, or hexadecimal representation. Literals expressed in binary are prefixed with 0b, with 0o for octal, and with 0x for hexadecimal. There is no prefix for the commonly used decimal representation.

Representation Value Literal
Binary 0b101010L
Octal 0o52L
Decimal 42L
Hexadecimal 0x2aL

Double literals

Value literals for the Double type can be expressed in standard or scientific notation.

Representation Value Literal
Standard 0.1973269804
Scientific 1.973269804e-1

If nothing follows after the decimal point, then the digit after the decimal point may be omitted. For example, 1. is a valid Double literal and the same as 1.0.

Bool literals

Existing literals for the Bool type are true and false.

String literals

A value literal for the String type is an arbitrary length sequence of Unicode characters enclosed in double quotes. Inside of a string, the back-slash character \ may be used to escape a double quote character, and to insert a new-line as \n, a carriage return as \r, and a tab as \t.

The following are examples for valid string literals:

"This is a simple string."
"\"This is a more complex string.\", she said.\n"

Q# also supports interpolated strings. An interpolated string is a string literal that may contain any number of interpolation expressions. These expressions can be of arbitrary types. Upon construction, the expressions are evaluated and their String representation is inserted at the corresponding location within the defined literal. Interpolation is enabled by prepending the special character $ directly before the initial quote, with no white space between them.

For instance, if res is an expression that evaluates to 1, then the second sentence in the following String literal displays "The result was 1.":

$"This is an interpolated string. The result was {res}."

Qubit literals

No literals for the Qubit type exist, since quantum memory is managed by the runtime. Values of type Qubit can hence only be obtained via allocation.

Values of type Qubit represent an opaque identifier by which a quantum bit, or qubit, can be addressed. The only operator they support is equality comparison. For more information on the Qubit data type, See Qubits.

Result literals

Existing literals for the Result type are Zero and One.

Values of type Result represent the result of a binary quantum measurement. Zero indicates a projection onto the +1 eigenspace, One indicates a projection onto the -1 eigenspace.

Pauli literals

Existing literals for the Pauli type are PauliI, PauliX, PauliY, and PauliZ.

Values of type Pauli represent one of the four single-qubit Pauli matrices, with PauliI representing the identity. Values of type Pauli are commonly used to denote the axis for rotations and to specify with respect to which basis to measure.

Range literals

Value literals for the Range type are expressions of the form start..step..stop, where start, step, and end are expressions of type Int. If the step size is one, it may be omitted. For example, start..stop is a valid Range literal and the same as start..1..stop.

Values of type Range represent a sequence of integers, where the first element in the sequence is start, and subsequent elements are obtained by adding step to the previous one, until stop is passed. Range values are inclusive at both ends, that is, the last element of the range is stop if the difference between start and stop is a multiple of step. A range may be empty if, for instance, step is positive and stop < start.

The following are examples for valid Range literals:

  • 1..3 is the range 1, 2, 3.
  • 2..2..5 is the range 2, 4.
  • 2..2..6 is the range 2, 4, 6.
  • 6..-2..2 is the range 6, 4, 2.
  • 2..-2..1 is the range 2.
  • 2..1 is the empty range.

For more information, see Contextual expressions.

Array literals

An array literal is a sequence of zero or more expressions, separated by commas and enclosed in brackets [ and ]; for example, [1,2,3]. All expressions must have a common base type, which is the item type of the array. If an empty array is specified with [], a type annotation may be needed for the compiler to determine the appropriate type of the expression.

Arrays of arbitrary length may be created using a sized-array expression. Such an expression is of the form [expr, size = s], where s can be any expression of type Int and expr is evaluated to a value that will be the items of the array repeated s times. For example, [1.2, size = 3] creates the same array as [1.2, 1.2, 1.2].

Tuple literals

A tuple literal is a sequence of one or more expressions of any type, separated by commas and enclosed in parentheses ( and ). The type of the tuple includes the information about each item type.

Value Literal Type
("Id", 0, 1.) (String, Int, Double)
(PauliX,(3,1)) (Pauli, (Int, Int))

Tuples containing a single item are treated as identical to the item itself, both in type and value, which is called singleton tuple equivalence.

Tuples are used to bundle values together into a single value, making it easier to pass them around. This makes it possible for every callable to take exactly one input and return exactly one output.

Literals for user-defined types

Values of a user-defined type are constructed by invoking their constructor. A default constructor is automatically generated when declaring the type. It is currently not possible to define custom constructors.

For instance, if IntPair has two items of type Int, then IntPair(2, 3) creates a new instance by invoking the default constructor.

Operation and function literals

Anonymous operations and functions can be created using a lambda expression.