# Q# Type Model

In discussing how to define Q# operations and functions, we have seen that inputs to and outputs from callables are each denoted along with their types. At this point, it is helpful to take a step back and discuss these types in more detail. In particular, we note that Q# is a strongly-typed language, such that careful use of these types can help the compiler to provide strong guarantees about Q# programs at compile time.

Warning

In order to provide the strongest guarantees possible, conversions between types in Q# must be made explicitly using calls to functions which express that conversion. A variety of such functions are provided as a part of the Microsoft.Quantum.Extensions.Convert namespace. Upcasts to compatible types on the other hand happen implicitly.

Q# provides both primitive types, which can be used directly, and a variety of ways to produce new types from other types. We describe each in the rest of this section.

## Primitive Types

The Q# language provides a small set of primitive types that can be used throughout operations and functions.

• Int: Represents 64-bit signed integers, e.g.: 2, 107, -5.
• Double: Represents double-precision floating point numbers, e.g.: 0.0, -1.3, 4e-7.
• Bool: Represents a condition which can either be true or false.
• Pauli: Represents one of the Pauli matrices, either PauliI, PauliX, PauliY, or PauliZ.
• Result: Represents the result of a measurement in the computational basis, either Zero for $\ket{0}$ or One for $\ket{1}$.
• Range: Represents a consecutive sequence of integers, denoted by start..step..stop. E.g: 1..2..7 represents the sequence ${1, 3, 5, 7}$.
• String: Represents a message to be reported in the case of an error or diagnostic event.

In addition, Q# defines a primitive type Qubit to model an opaque reference to a qubit within a target machine. A value of type Qubit cannot be directly used in Q#, but can be passed to operations defined by a target machine (such as gates and measurements) in order to do interesting things. We will consider the Qubit type in much more detail in the section on using qubits.

## Tuple Types

Given zero or more different types T0, T1, ..., Tn, we can denote a new tuple type as (T0, T1, ..., Tn). Values of the new tuple type are tuples formed by sequences of values from each type in the tuple. For instance, (3, false) is a tuple whose type is the tuple type (Int, Bool). The types used to construct a new tuple type can themselves be tuples, as in (Int, (Qubit, Qubit)). Such nesting is always finite, however, as tuple types cannot under any circumstances contain themselves.

Tuples are a powerful concept used throughout Q# to collect values together into a single value, making it easier to pass them around. In particular, using tuple notation, we can express that every operation and callable takes exactly one input and returns exactly one output.

In Q#, a tuple type with exactly one element is considered to be equivalent to the type of that element alone, a property known as singleton tuple equivalence. For instance, there is no difference between the types Qubit, (Qubit), and ((((Qubit)))). In particular, this means that an operation or function whose input tuple or output tuple type has one field can be thought of as taking a single argument or returning a single value.

## Array Types

Given any other type T, the type T[] denotes an array of values of that type. For instance, a collection of integers is denoted Int[], while an array of arrays of (Bool, Pauli) values is denoted (Bool, Pauli)[][].

An array value can be written in Q# source code by using square brackets around the elements of an array, as in [PauliI, PauliX, PauliY, PauliZ]. The types of each element must match exactly, as there are no "base" types in Q#.

Warning

The elements of an array cannot typically be changed after the array has been created. In order to change the elements of an array, it must be bound to a mutable variable.

Alternatively, an array can be created from its size using the new keyword:

let zeros = new Int[13];
// new also allows for creating empty arrays:
let emptyRegister = new Qubit[0];


This is typically more useful for mutable arrays, as we discussed above, since the individual elements of an array created using the new keyword are not often useful in and of themselves.

In either case, once an array has been constructed, the built-in Length function can be used to obtain the number of elements as an Int. Arrays can be subscripted using square brackets, with subscripts either having type Int or type Range, to obtain either single elements or new arrays containing a subset of the elements of an array. The subscripts of arrays are zero-based:

let arr = [10, 11, 36, 49];
let ten = arr[0]; // 10
let odds = arr[1..2..4]; // [11, 49]


## Operation and Function Types

As noted above, operations and functions are values in and of themselves in Q#. The types of these values are constructed from the types of the input and output tuples that each operation and function takes and returns. To see this in practice, let's consider the ApplyTwice example from above:

operation ApplyTwice(op : (Qubit => Unit), target : Qubit) : Unit {
...


Here, we see that the operation declaration specifies that op has type (Qubit => Unit), which means that the type of op is an operation type, and has as its valid values operations which accept an input of Qubit and produce an output of Unit. We can indicate functions in the same way by using -> instead of =>. The types before and after each arrow can be whatever type we wish, including other operation or function types. For instance, we can pass the function SquareOperation defined above to any input expecting type ((Qubit => Unit) -> (Qubit => Unit)). Informally, we can read that type as "a classical function which takes operations on a single qubit and returns operations on a single qubit."

In order to use the Controlled and Adjoint variants of an operation type, we need to indicate that the values of that type support the variants we wish to call. This is done by adding constraints to the operation type, as in (Qubit => Unit : Adjoint), which indicates an adjointable operation acting on one qubit to produce an empty tuple as its output.

## User-Defined Types

The final way to construct new types in Q# is with user-defined types (UDTs). For any tuple type T, we can declare a new user-defined type that is a subtype of T with the newtype statement. In the Microsoft.Quantum.Canon namespace, for instance, complex numbers are defined as a user-defined type:

newtype Complex = (Double, Double);


This statement creates a new type which is effectively a label for a particular tuple type. Values of the new type are created by using the name of the type as a function:

let realUnit = Complex(1.0, 0.0);
let imaginaryUnit = Complex(0.0, 1.0);


As with ordinary tuple types, the constituting elements of a user-defined type can be accessed using deconstruction. This lets us write out accessor functions into the structure of a user-defined type, for instance:

function Re(z : Complex) : Double {
let (re, im) = z;
return re;
}

function Im(z : Complex) : Double {
let (re, im) = z;
return im;
}


In addition to providing short aliases for potentially complicated tuple types, one significant advantage of using UDTs is that they can document the intent of a particular value. Returning to the example of Complex, one could have also defined 2D polar coordinates as a user-defined type:

newtype Polar = (Double, Double);


Even though both Complex and Polar both derive from (Double, Double), the two types are wholly incompatible in Q#, minimizing the risk of accidently calling a complex math function with polar coordinates and vice versa. In this way, user-defined types can play a similar role to struct types in C and other such languages.