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Parameter Syntax

Parameters are separated from the Verb (and any qualifiers directly associated with the Verb) by at least one space (or Tab) character, and from each other by spaces or commas. Parameters are not optional, but if they are associated with a Verb, they will be prompted for if they are not already present. This is implemented by the Application Programmer calling the appropriate prompted input subprogram explicitly. Parameters may themselves have associated optional Qualifiers, where some Qualifiers may be position independent (i.e. can be associated with the Command Verb or any associated Parameter) or dependent (i.e. can only be associated with a single Parameter). UIPACK may be used to assign a name for each Parameter associated with a Verb. This name is only used by UIPACK in order to define whether Qualifiers are directly associated with the Verb, or with a particular Parameter of the Verb. The syntax for a Parameter Name is identical to that for Verbs and Qualifiers and thus names may be built up from the alphanumeric characters a-z, A-Z and 0-9, together with the underscore ``_" and dollar ``$" characters. They may contain up to 32 characters of which only the first 8 are significant by default. This default may be overridden by an Application Program however. In general a particular Verb will be associated with a fixed set of Parameters, but there are instances where a variable number are valid (e.g. the PRINT Command mentioned previously). This situation is catered for by UIPACK, with the restriction that no concatenation of several Commands onto a single line is allowed, since the Verbs from subsequent Commands will be treated as Parameters of the Verb having a variable number of Parameters.


Liz Buckle
Fri Jan 13 17:40:55 CST 1995