Understanding the Basics

M is a versatile and powerful programming language that has gained popularity in recent years. It is known for its simplicity, readability, and flexibility, making it an excellent choice for a wide range of applications, from data analysis to web development.

One of the key features of M is its dynamic typing, which means that you don’t need to explicitly declare the data type of a variable. M will automatically determine the type based on the value assigned to it. This can make your code more concise and easier to write, but it also requires you to be mindful of the types of data you’re working with.

Declare variables

x = 5
y = 10.5
name = "Alex"
is_developer = True

In the example above, we’ve declared four variables: x (an integer), y (a float), name (a string), and is_developer (a boolean). Notice how we didn’t need to specify the data type for each variable; M took care of that for us.

Now, let’s perform some basic arithmetic operations:

Perform arithmetic operations

z = x + y
print(z)  # Output: 15.5

product = x * y
print(product)  # Output: 52.5

quotient = y / x
print(quotient)  # Output: 2.1

As you can see, M allows you to perform standard arithmetic operations, such as addition, multiplication, and division. The results are automatically converted to the appropriate data type, in this case, a float. Conditional Statements and Loops

One of the essential aspects of any programming language is its control structures, which allow you to make decisions and control the flow of your code. In M, you can use if-else statements, for and while loops, and switch statements to achieve this.

Let’s start with if-else statements:

If-else statement

x = 7
if x > 5:
   print("x is greater than 5")
else:
   print("x is less than or equal to 5")

In this example, the code will print “x is greater than 5” because the value of x is 7, which is greater than 5.

Now, let’s look at a for loop:

For loop

for i in range(1, 6):
   print(i)  # Output: 1 2 3 4 5

The range() function in M is used to generate a sequence of numbers. In this case, range(1, 6) will create a sequence of numbers from 1 to 5 (the upper bound is exclusive). The for loop then iterates over this sequence, printing each number.

You can also use a while loop to achieve similar results:

While loop

i = 1
while i <= 5:
   print(i)
   i += 1  # Output: 1 2 3 4 5

In this example, the while loop continues to execute as long as the condition i <= 5 is true. Inside the loop, we increment the value of i by 1 to ensure that the loop eventually terminates.