Root Objects

Graph roots.

Take a look at Design, it will help you understand this section.

A Stof document is a graph that can have multiple root nodes. This feature is very important when combining other documents and APIs, because Stof can essentially act like a file system, storing each document or API under a separate root and treating that root like an independent graph.

From lots of experience with Stof, I recommend limiting the number of roots you have and treating roots like separate documents in a file explorer. This will make import/export and large documents feel much simpler and more maintainable, especially with many APIs.

Root Syntax

Within a document, you can always define another root like so. It is much more common, however, to add additional roots via import.

Notice how this differs from the field syntax (no colon).

root SecondRoot {
    #[main]
    fn main() {
        assert_eq(self.name(), "SecondRoot");
        assert_not(self.parent());
        pln("Hello, second root");
    }
}

#[main]
fn main() {
    assert_eq(self.name(), "root");
    pln("Hello, main root");
    
    // Can still get to other roots by name!
    assert_eq(SecondRoot.name(), "SecondRoot");
}

Programmatic Root Syntax

You can also create a new root programmatically with a variant of the "new" expression. In this example, I am checking for a root called "ApiRoot" and initializing it if it doesn't exist.

#[main]
fn main() {
    if (!ApiRoot) ApiRoot = new root {
        root_obj: true
    };
    assert(ApiRoot.is_root());
}