# Literals as expressions
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/literals-as-expressions/47415
**Category:** General Usage
**Created:** [September 28, 2020, 4:05pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/literals-as-expressions/47415 "2020-09-28T16:05:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@mikepol](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mikepol)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2020, 4:05pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/literals-as-expressions/47415/1 "2020-09-28T16:05:09Z")
Hi,
I’m trying to represent a literal as an Expr object, without success:
```julia
julia> :(5) |> typeof
Int64
julia> Meta.parse("5") |> typeof
Int64
julia> function foo(e::Expr) e end
julia> foo(:(5))
ERROR: MethodError: no method matching foo(::Int64)
```
What I’m trying to do is to store expression objects and later combine them, but I’m unable to store literals. Something along the lines of:
```julia
struct Foo
expr::Expr
end
function combine(op::Symbol, x::Foo, y::Foo)
return Foo(:($op($(x.expr),$(y.expr))))
end
```
```julia
julia> combine(:+,Foo(:(5*x)),Foo(:(y-1)))
Foo(:(5x + (y - 1)))
julia> combine(:+,Foo(:(5)),Foo(:(y-1)))
ERROR: MethodError: Cannot `convert` an object of type Int64 to an object of type Expr
```
Is it possible to store literals as Expr objects, or should I hold my expressions as type Any?
Thanks.
-Mike
---
### Author:  [@rdeits](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/rdeits)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2020, 4:14pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/literals-as-expressions/47415/2 "2020-09-28T16:14:40Z")
`::Any` is probably fine here. Alternatively, you could declare a more specific type alias like:
```julia
const ArgType = Union{Expr, Symbol, String, Number}
```
This will likely have little or no performance benefit over using `::Any`, but you might find it helpful in terms of documenting and checking your expected types.
---
### Author:  [@CameronBieganek](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/CameronBieganek)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2020, 4:15pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/literals-as-expressions/47415/3 "2020-09-28T16:15:41Z")
Literals are literal, so you don’t need to convert them to symbols. They are stored as themselves in `Expr` objects:
```julia
julia> dump(:(1 + 2))
Expr
head: Symbol call
args: Array{Any}((3,))
1: Symbol +
2: Int64 1
3: Int64 2
```
---
### Author:  [@yuyichao](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/yuyichao)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2020, 4:28pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/literals-as-expressions/47415/4 "2020-09-28T16:28:39Z")
No you should use `Any` if you want to handle anything that can be returned by the parser/lowering. `Expr` is for, well, expression, and there are syntax that aren’t really expressions, for example literals…
---
### Author:  [@mikepol](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mikepol)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2020, 4:36pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/literals-as-expressions/47415/5 "2020-09-28T16:36:25Z")
Ok I think I understand now. I can use Union if I know before hand what types of literals I’ll be storing, but if I want to store literals of any type down the road, I really need to use Any. So I think Any is appropriate here. Thanks everyone for your help!