Any

• The any type consisting of all values other than errors. A value belongs to the any type if and only if its basic type is not error.
• Thus all values belong to the type any|error.
• Equivalent to a union of all non-error basic types.
• Langlib lang.value module contains functions that apply to multiple basic types.
• A variable of type any can be cast to a specific type using the < > symbol enclosure.

Sample

import ballerina/io;

public function main() {
    // Can cast `any` to specific type.
    any x = 1.4;
    float n = <float>x;
    io:println(n);

    if (x is decimal) {
        io:println("x is decimal");
    } else if (x is string) {
        io:println("x is string");
    } else if (x is float) {
        io:println("x is float");
    }
}

Output

1.4
x is float