6.9.6. Numeric underscores

NumericUnderscores

Since:

8.6.1

Status:

Included in GHC2024, GHC2021

Allow the use of underscores in numeric literals.

GHC allows for numeric literals to be given in decimal, octal, hexadecimal, binary, or float notation.

The language extension NumericUnderscores adds support for expressing underscores in numeric literals. For instance, the numeric literal 1_000_000 will be parsed into 1000000 when NumericUnderscores is enabled. That is, underscores in numeric literals are ignored when NumericUnderscores is enabled. See also #14473.

For example:

-- decimal
million    = 1_000_000
billion    = 1_000_000_000
lightspeed = 299_792_458
version    = 8_04_1
date       = 2017_12_31

-- hexadecimal
red_mask = 0xff_00_00
size1G   = 0x3fff_ffff

-- binary
bit8th   = 0b01_0000_0000
packbits = 0b1_11_01_0000_0_111
bigbits  = 0b1100_1011__1110_1111__0101_0011

-- float
pi       = 3.141_592_653_589_793
faraday  = 96_485.332_89
avogadro = 6.022_140_857e+23

-- function
isUnderMillion = (< 1_000_000)

clip64M x
    | x > 0x3ff_ffff = 0x3ff_ffff
    | otherwise = x

test8bit x = (0b01_0000_0000 .&. x) /= 0

About validity:

x0 = 1_000_000   -- valid
x1 = 1__000000   -- valid
x2 = 1000000_    -- invalid
x3 = _1000000    -- invalid

e0 = 0.0001      -- valid
e1 = 0.000_1     -- valid
e2 = 0_.0001     -- invalid
e3 = _0.0001     -- invalid
e4 = 0._0001     -- invalid
e5 = 0.0001_     -- invalid

f0 = 1e+23       -- valid
f1 = 1_e+23      -- valid
f2 = 1__e+23     -- valid
f3 = 1e_+23      -- invalid

g0 = 1e+23       -- valid
g1 = 1e+_23      -- invalid
g2 = 1e+23_      -- invalid

h0 = 0xffff      -- valid
h1 = 0xff_ff     -- valid
h2 = 0x_ffff     -- valid
h3 = 0x__ffff    -- valid
h4 = _0xffff     -- invalid