Text

Text is how programs talk to people. In this chapter you’ll learn how to write text, put values inside it, include special characters, and work with the text you have: tidy it, measure it, look inside it, and change parts of it.

Writing text

Text goes between double quotes, on one line:

say "Hello, World!"

Hello, World!

Single quotes don’t work in Quill. Text always uses double quotes, so there’s only one way to write it.

Values inside text

Put a value between { and } inside text, and Quill shows the value there:

name = "Amina"
qty = 3
price = 12.50

say "Hi {name}!"
say "{qty} items at {price} each"
say "That's {qty * price} in total"

Hi Amina!
3 items at 12.50 each
That's 37.50 in total

Anything can go inside the braces: a name, a number, a calculation, or a comparison. Each pair of braces holds one value.

This is how you build text from values in Quill. + only adds numbers, so "Hi " + name is a mistake, and Quill suggests the braces instead:

name = "Amina"
say "Hi " + name

Problem on line 2 of example.quill:

    say "Hi " + name
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^
You're adding Text ("Hi ") to Text (name).
Quill won't guess which one you meant.

Did you mean:  say "Hi {name}"

Special characters

Some characters can’t be typed directly inside text. Write them with a backslash \ in front:

say "Line one\nLine two"
say "She said \"hi\""
say "Use \{name\} to show a name"

Line one
Line two
She said "hi"
Use {name} to show a name

Text with quotes inside

When text has many quotes in it, the backslashes get hard to read. Wrap the text in three quotes instead, and quotes inside need no backslash:

name = "Amina"
say """She said "hi" to {name}."""

She said "hi" to Amina.

Tidying text

Text that people type often has spaces at the ends, or capital letters where you don’t want them. trim, uppercase, and lowercase give back a tidy copy:

typed = "  Amina Okafor  "
name = trim typed

say "[{name}]"
say uppercase name
say lowercase "AMINA@SCHOOL.ORG"

[Amina Okafor]
AMINA OKAFOR
amina@school.org

trim takes away spaces, tabs, and new lines at the start and the end. The spaces between words stay. The text you started with doesn’t change: typed still has its spaces, and name is the tidy copy.

A tool works inside braces too: say "Hello, {trim typed}!".

A tool takes no brackets. To tidy a longer value, put a space before the bracket: trim (parts at 1). Written right against it, trim(x) is a call to a function named trim, and Quill says so when there isn’t one.

How long: length of

length of says how many letters a text has. Spaces and punctuation count, and so does each letter with an accent:

code = "INV-2026"
say length of code
say length of "café"

8
4

Read it as: “the length of the code.” It is a number, so it works in a when:

password = "quill"
when
  length of password < 8 -> say "Use at least 8 letters."
  else -> say "That's long enough."

Use at least 8 letters.

Looking inside text: contains, starts with, ends with

These three answer true or false:

email = "amina@school.org"
code = "INV-2026-001"

say email contains "@"
say code starts with "INV"
say code ends with ".pdf"

true
true
false

They are conditions, so they go straight into a when and join with and, or, and not:

email = "amina@school.org"
when
  email contains "@" and email ends with ".org" -> say "A school address."
  not email contains "@" -> say "That isn't an email address."
  else -> say "Some other address."

A school address.

Capital and small letters are different: "Amina" contains "amina" is false. To ignore them, compare the lowercase of both.

Changing part of the text: replace

replace OLD with NEW in TEXT changes every OLD in the text to NEW:

code = "INV-2026-001"
say replace "-" with " " in code
say replace "Mr" with "Dr" in "Mr Okafor"

INV 2026 001
Dr Okafor

Like the other tools, replace gives back a new text. code is still "INV-2026-001".

trim, uppercase, lowercase, length, contains, starts, ends, and replace are Quill words only when they are used this way. A value of your own can still be called length or trim.

Common mistakes

Forgetting the closing quote:

say "Hello

Problem on line 1 of example.quill:

    say "Hello
        ^^^^^^
This text starts with a quote but never ends.
Text must open and close with " on the same line.

Did you mean:  "Hello"

Forgetting the closing brace:

name = "Amina"
say "Hi {name"

Problem on line 2 of example.quill:

    say "Hi {name"
            ^
This { inside text is never closed.
A value inside text goes between { and }, and text can't go inside the braces.

Did you mean:  {name}

The text tools work on text. A number has to become text first, and braces do that:

year = 2026
say length of year

Problem on line 2 of example.quill:

    say length of year
                  ^^^^
length of works on text, but year is a Number.
Put it inside text first, like "{year}".

say length of "{year}" is 4.

Try it

1. Create values for a city and its temperature, then say "It's 31 degrees in Dubai" using braces.
2. Show a receipt line with the price of 3 items at 4.25 each, calculated inside the braces.
3. Show the text {curly braces} with the braces visible.
4. trim the text " hello ", then say it in uppercase.
5. Make an email address and use a when to say whether it contains "@".
6. Change every space in "New York City" to - with replace.