Keyword index

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Every word the declaration grammar treats specially: top-level block keywords, section names and their aliases, declaration qualifiers, contextual keywords, reserved names, and the identifiers that are rewritten before HLSL is emitted.

Synopsis

<top-level-keyword> ( <attribute-key> = <value> [, …] )
{
    <section-name> [=] { <qualifier>… <type> <name> [= <default>] [[ <metadata> ]] ; … } [;]
}

[!NOTE] Block words, section names and type names are not reserved against identifiers. A property, output variable, parameter or function may be named Shader, Graph or Layout; they are recognized only where the grammar expects them. The reserved words are the exception (since 2.0.0).

Top-level block keywords

Matched case-sensitively, as a whole word: ShaderFunction is its own word, never Shader followed by something. A mis-cased one (shader(…)) is not a block: DSH2240.

Shader is limited to one per file (DSH2250), and a .dsh header holds no asset block at all (DSH2249), so an import cannot add a second one. Every other block may be repeated. Function and GraphFunction may also appear nested inside Namespace, where their names become <Namespace>::<Name>.

[!WARNING] MaterialLayer and MaterialLayerBlend are deprecated since 1.3.0 in favour of ShaderLayer and ShaderLayerBlend. They still read the same, with the warning DSH2251. Later diagnostics and generated metadata always report the modern spelling.

Section names

Matched case-insensitively. The = before the block is optional (since 1.5.0), as is the ; after it. Sections may appear in any order and may repeat: Properties, Inputs and Outputs append, Settings merges key by key, and a second Graph or Layout replaces the first, with the warning DSH2258 (since 2.0.0). A name a block does not take is DSH2245.

Function and GraphFunction have no sections at all — their { … } is raw HLSL.

[!WARNING] Code = { … } is an error in every block that accepts sections: DSH2246, and in a VirtualFunction, together with Graph, DSH2247. Use Graph.

Declaration qualifiers

in and out are the only accepted qualifiers on a function parameter, in any case; anything else is DSH6302.

Contextual keywords

Recognized only in the position listed, and case-insensitively except where the row says otherwise.

Reserved words

(since 2.0.0) One lexer reads every file, and its keywords are reserved in a 1.x file too, in lower case: uniform static const extern export in out inout struct if else for while do return break continue discard true false import. None of them can name a property, an output, an input or a Graph variable. Another case is an ordinary word: Const and IN are read as const and in where the 1.x grammar expects those, and True as true.

Reserved names

return inside a Function body is HLSL. A bare return; in a function that declares a return type is DSH6308.

Identifier rewrites

Identifiers rewritten inside Function and GraphFunction declarations before HLSL is emitted. Matching is case-insensitive and whole-identifier only; text inside strings and comments is left alone, and a ::-qualified name bypasses the table — it is flattened to <Namespace>_<Name>.

A token that matches nothing in this table is emitted unchanged. Type tokens in every section are read through the one type table on Types, which holds the same GLSL spellings.

Diagnostics

The complete list is in the diagnostics index.

Example

Every keyword class in one file.

Namespace(Name="Common")
{
    Function float Luma(in vec3 color) {
        return dot(color, vec3(0.2126, 0.7152, 0.0722));   // vec3 -> float3 on emission
    }
}

Shader(Name="Materials/M_Keywords")
{
    Properties {
        Group("Look") {
            const vec3      Ambient = vec3(0.02, 0.02, 0.03);
            ScalarParameter Rough   = 0.5 [Group="Surface"; Slider(0, 1)];
        }
        TextureSampleParameter2D BaseTex = Path(Game, "Textures/T_Noise");
    }

    Settings {
        Domain       = "Surface";
        ShadingModel = "Unlit";
        BlendMode    = "Opaque";
    }

    Outputs {
        vec3 Color;
        Base.EmissiveColor = Color;
    }

    Graph {
        #Region "Sampling"
        vec2 UV  = UE.TexCoord(Index = 0);
        vec4 Tex = BaseTex(Coordinates = UV);
        #EndRegion

        Color = Tex.rgb * Common::Luma(Tex.rgb) + Ambient * Rough;
    }

    Layout {
        Comment(Name="Sampling", X=-1200, Y=-200, W=900, H=400);
        Node(Var="UV", X=-1100, Y=-120);
    }
}

See also

• Lexical elements — the case-sensitivity matrix and the token rules behind this index
• Source files — which blocks each file kind may declare
• Types — every type token and its per-context validity
• Shader · ShaderFunction · ShaderLayer · VirtualFunction · Function · GraphFunction · Namespace — the block pages
• Properties · Inputs / Outputs · Output bindings · Options · Layout — the section pages
• import · Preprocessor — the directives that are not part of the grammar
• Diagnostics index — every code