8.6 Nil

If you use a variable without assigning a value to it, the variable will have the type Nil which practically means that the variable does not exist. Hollywood only keeps variables which have a value. If you pass an uninitialized variable to a function or use it with an operator, it will be automatically converted to zero or - if the function expects a string - to an empty string ("").

If you do not need a variable any longer, you can also set it to Nil and it will be deleted in the next cycle of the garbage collector then.

You can also delete an element of a table by setting it to Nil.

Be careful when checking variables against Nil because 0=Nil is actually True in Hollywood. Thus, IsNil() and GetType() are the only reliable way to find out if a variable is really Nil. Simply checking against Nil will also result in True if the variable is 0.


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