Indentation in Flint

Flint enforces strict indentation rules to ensure clean and readable code. Also, indentation is needed for scoping. Everything writen within the main functions is "inside" that function. If you don't indent instructions that are meant to be placed within the main function, for example, Flint will try to see if the line you wrote is a function or something else, like the use Core.print line.

Lets look at it in action:

use Core.print

def main():
print("This is not indented correctly.\n");

When you run the above code, you’ll see an error message:

Parse Error at hello.ft:4:1
 -- Expected a body, but got:
print("This is not indented correctly.");

This happens because Flint expects all code inside main to be indented. Here’s the correct way to write it:

def main():
	print("This is correctly indented.\n"); // Properly indented

Proper indentation is not just a stylistic choice in Flint – it’s a fundamental part of the syntax. You do not need to indent using hard tabs (\t), 4 spaces are interpreted as tabs by the Flint compiler.