Lyric

A statically typed application language with a bytecode VM — standalone, and embeddable in a host with a capability-based sandbox.

What changed in v3.4.0 — 2026-08-24

A chain can be started from an array, a range, or a table with holes in it. std.iter gains four entrances:
```
over(xs).map(f)                 // an array
range(1, 4)                     // what '1..4' walks in a loop
rangeInclusive(1, 4)            // what '1..=4' walks
compact(slots).map(f)           // the non-null values of a '(?T)[]'
```
The adapters have been methods since 2.17, but the three built-in forms could not start a pipeline: an array and a string have no declaration to hang an Iterable conformance on, and a range is not a value at all — a..b is a loop head, so (a..b).iter() is not something that could exist. Naming the machinery by hand was the alternative, and a class literal with two fields reads worse than the loop it replaces.

rangeInclusive is its own function rather than range(low, high + 1), for the reason the two adapters behind it are separate: at the type's maximum that + 1 wraps and the chain yields nothing.

compact takes an ARRAY, not an iterator, and that is the whole design. An Iterator<?T> cannot exist — next() answers ?T and spends null on "the end", so an optional element would need ??T, and ? does not nest. Reading the slots directly is what makes the distinction available. It is lazy like every other adapter.