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The expression language

The rules that are not a per-entry fact — the value model, the number model, the JSON ingestion contract, the failure contract, the type-discipline rules, the regular-expression subset, the path grammar, operator precedence, the declared timezone, and this phase's known limitations — live on the eight subpages below, one rule area per page. Every per-entry fact — a function's signature, its description, its worked examples — lives on the generated Function & Operator Catalog page instead, because that page is generated from the registry and cannot drift from the code; restating a per-entry fact here would be a second copy of a fact that can drift, which is exactly how a specification starts lying.

Find an answer by question

Each row links to the subpage that answers the question, in an author's own words.

QuestionPage
What happens when a value is missing?Values & Numbers
What happens when arithmetic cannot be performed?When Expressions Fail
Why will the plus symbol not join two names?Types & Conversions
What does the engine do with a number a connected system sends as text?Reading Input Data
How does a path pick rows out of a list?Paths & Filters
How is a text pattern matched safely?Text Patterns
What does "today" mean?Dates & Timezone
Which behaviours depend on the host platform?Known Limitations