Status: implemented
A number is written with JSON number syntax less its sign: an integer part, an optional fraction, an optional exponent. A leading - is not part of the literal but the unary minus applied to it, which is why - 42.5 is the same value written with a space.
export default [0, -42.5, 3e2, 1E-7];
A literal denotes the IEEE 754 double nearest its decimal value, as it does in JavaScript and in JSON.parse: digits beyond a double's precision round away, so 9007199254740993 is 9007199254740992; a literal too large for a double is Infinity (1e400); and one too small is 0 (1e-400), which is why -1e-400 is -0. A .json input reads its numbers the same way. An overflowed literal is an Infinity like any other, written as the word where a format has one and refused by a .json output (output).
A number may also be written in binary, as JavaScript writes it: 0b or 0B followed by one or more 0 or 1 digits. 0b101010 is 42; conversion rounds to the nearest double, as for decimal and hexadecimal literals. A binary literal has no fraction or exponent. Missing digits, other digits or a word directly after the literal are errors. The n suffix gives an exact bigint at any width: 0B101n is 5n. Outputs write the value in decimal; unary negation also preserves -0b0 as -0. An octal literal uses 0o or 0O followed by one or more digits 0–7. 0o17 and 0O17 are 15; 0o17n and 0O17n are the exact bigint 15n. The existing radix rules apply: separators may occur between digits, and no fraction or exponent belongs to the literal. Numbers round to the nearest double; BigInts keep every digit. Unary negation preserves -0o0 as -0. Missing digits, digits 8 or 9, misplaced separators and an identifier immediately after a literal are errors. Legacy leading-zero spellings such as 017 and 08 remain rejected, as in strict JavaScript modules. JSON and DataJS retain their own numeric grammars.
The language designer sergey-shandar approved explicit octal literals in the working session, under DESIGN.md §12.
A single _ may separate digits in decimal integer parts, fractions and exponents, and in binary, octal or hexadecimal digits: 1_000, 1.2_5e1_0, 0b1010_0011, 0o7_7, 0xFF_FF, and 1_000n. Separators do not change the value. Leading, trailing or repeated separators, separators next to a radix prefix, decimal point, exponent marker or sign, or bigint suffix, and separators after a leading decimal zero are errors.
A number may also be written in hexadecimal, as JavaScript writes it: 0x or 0X, then one or more digits 0–9, a–f or A–F. It denotes the double nearest the integer its digits spell, as a decimal literal does, so 0xFF is 255 and 0x20000000000001 is 9007199254740992. It has no fraction and no exponent: after 0x, e is a digit, so 0x10e1 is 4321, and a . after the digits is the next token, so 0x10.length is an access, as in JavaScript. 0x with no digit, and a word or a digit standing directly after the literal (0xg, 0x1g), are errors in both languages. The spelling is the source's and not the value's: every output writes 0xFF exactly as it writes 255 — 255 in the .js, DataJS, JSON and EDAG outputs, and the double's bits in .rs — as it writes a single-quoted string between double quotes, and two modules that differ only in it are one graph.
export default [0xFF, 0XfF, 0x10e1];
Otherwise the syntax is JSON's, so the other JavaScript spellings JSON leaves out are not recognized: no octal (0o7) prefix, no leading +, no leading decimal point (.5), and no trailing decimal point without a fractional digit (1.). The three numbers JSON cannot spell are written as the words JavaScript gives them — NaN, Infinity and -Infinity — exactly as DataJS writes them:
export default [NaN, Infinity, -Infinity];
NaN and Infinity are reserved words, like undefined: a module cannot bind or shadow them, so each denotes its value wherever a value stands. Array is reserved the same way, for a different reason: it denotes no value here, and is the one word the right side of instanceof may be (operators), so a module that could bind it would mean something else by it.
They still name a property, as every reserved word does: { NaN: 1 } and a.NaN are a key and an access, and mean the string "NaN", exactly as in JavaScript, where a property is named by an IdentifierName and a value by an IdentifierReference. -Infinity names nothing in either language: it is two tokens in both — the operator and the word — which no property name may be.
FunctionalScript has one NaN. IEEE 754 gives a NaN a sign and a payload, and a JavaScript program can read them — through a typed array or a DataView, which FunctionalScript has none of. Nothing else tells two NaNs apart: every operator, coercion and comparison treats each the same, Object.is included, and each is written as the word NaN. So a NaN's bits are not serializable data, hence not an observation and not a compatibility question (principles): every NaN is the one value, and a writer may spell them all as one — the Rust writer spells each as the quiet NaN with an empty payload.
The - is the unary minus operator (operators), the first operator the language had; ~, the bitwise not operator, !, the logical not operator, and typeof are the other prefixes — ~ Stage A of the same operators document, ! and typeof the rows admitted after both stages. None is part of the literal after it: -42.5 is the negation of 42.5, - 42.5 is the same value written with a space, and -NaN and -Infinity are values as JavaScript has them. Each binds looser than a property access or a call, as in JavaScript, so -1 .x is -(1 .x) and -1() is -(1()). What any of them takes is JavaScript's UnaryExpression, which an arrow function is not, so -(...a) => 1, ~(...a) => 1, !(...a) => 1 and typeof (...a) => 1 are syntax errors in both, and none stands immediately before ** — -2 ** 2 is refused, matching JavaScript, where (-2) ** 2 and -(2 ** 2) are the parenthesized readings — though either may stand right after it, as in JavaScript: 2 ** -2 is 2 ** (-2) and 2 ** ~2 is 2 ** (~2). Two adjacent - characters are the decrement operator, which the language has no rule for, so a negation of a negation is spaced, - -1, or grouped, -(-1). ~ and ! have no such token, in JavaScript or here, so ~~1 is two bitwise nots, the same as ~ ~1, and !!1 two logical nots. Operators has the rest of them.
A negative number is therefore an expression rather than a literal in the syntax. The graph is another matter: lowering folds a negation into a leaf when its operand lowers to a number or a bigint, since negating one is exact arithmetic, so the EDAG of -1 is the leaf -1 and not an operation. The operand is judged as lowered, not as written: a numeric literal, NaN or Infinity, a const holding a number or a bigint — a captured one included — and another folded negation all fold, so const a = 1; export default - -a; is the leaf 1, and its FunctionalScript output is export default 1;. An import of a number or a bigint folds too where it lowers to that value, which it does from a module that computes nothing but its default export, as a JSON document does; from any other module it lowers to that module's computation — its statement sequence, or a read of its export object when the module exports more than default — and stays an operation. A negation of anything else stays one too: of a string, a boolean, null, undefined or a container, since folding it would mean saying what that value converts to, and of an access, a parameter or a call, whose value lowering does not compute. No other operator folds, even over numbers: ~1 and 1 + 2 stay nodes, and -1 * 2 multiplies the leaf -1.
A .json or DataJS output computes a negation that survives lowering, using JavaScript's coercion rules. For a primitive, a bigint stays a bigint, and any other primitive converts to a number — -"2" is -2, -true is -1, -null and -"" are -0, and -undefined and -"abc" are NaN, which a .json output then has no spelling for. A negation of an array or an object first uses ToPrimitive: -[5] is -5 and -{} is NaN. Own valueOf or toString functions participate in that conversion and can fail. JSON then refuses a result such as NaN that it cannot represent; DataJS writes it. The EDAG and FunctionalScript outputs keep an unfolded negation as code (output).
The compiler demo has no programs for this page yet: its accepted and refused examples are a follow-up.
The demo on this page runs sample.f.js, this page's example as a function of one number — number literals: an integer, a fraction, and exponent forms — with every output fjs compile makes of it: the expression graph (EDAG), the Rust and the WebAssembly that Rust builds to. Its Run button calls the default export with 0, 1, 2 and 3, as JavaScript and as WebAssembly, and shows what each call returned or threw.
export default (...a) => [0, -42.5, 3e2, 1E-7][Number(a[0])] * 2;