Printing, testing, debugging

Printing

Numbat has a builtin print procedure that can be used to print the value of an expression:

print(2 km/h)
print(3 ft < 1 m)

You can also print out simple messages as strings. This is particularly useful when combined with string interpolation to print results of a computation:

let radius: Length = sqrt(footballfield / 4 pi) -> meter
print("A football field would fit on a sphere of radius {radius}")

You can use almost every expression inside a string interpolation field. For example:

print("3² + 4² = {hypot2(3, 4)}²")

let speed = 25 km/h
print("Speed of the bicycle: {speed} ({speed -> mph})")

Format specifiers are also supported in interpolations. For instance:

print("{pi:0.2f}")  # Prints "3.14"

For more information on supported format specifiers, please see this page.

Testing

The assert_eq procedure can be used to test for (approximate) equality of two quantities. This is often useful to make sure that (intermediate) results in longer calculations have a certain value, e.g. when restructuring the code. The general syntax is

assert_eq(q1, q2)
assert_eq(q1, q2, ε)

where the first version tests for exact equality while the second version tests for approximate equality \( |q_1-q_2| <= \epsilon \) with a specified accuracy of \( \epsilon \). Note that the input quantities are converted to the units of \( \epsilon \) before comparison. For example:

assert_eq(2 + 3, 5)
assert_eq(1 ft × 77 in², 4 gal)

assert_eq(alpha, 1 / 137, 1e-4)
assert_eq(3.3 ft, 1 m, 1 cm)

There is also a plain assert procedure that can test any boolean condition. For example:

assert(1 yard < 1 meter)
assert(str_contains("bar", "foobar"))

A runtime error is thrown if an assertion fails. Otherwise, nothing happens.

Debugging

You can use the builtin type procedure to see the type (or physical dimension) of a quantity:

>>> type(g0)

  Length / Time²

>>> type(2 < 3)

  Bool