Varkon MBS Programmers manual

Keywords and identifiers

A keyword is a word that has a special meaning in MBS. The word MODULE is a keyword. Lets have a closer look at the rules for MODULE's in MBS.

A module is defined by:

 [module_attribute] MODULE identifier(
    [parameter_declarations]);

  [declarations]

  BEGINMODULE
    statements
  ENDMODULE

Keywords

Words in square brackets like [module_attribute] are optional and may be excluded if the default is satisfactory. Words in capital letters like MODULE are keywords and may not be used in other situations. Here is the complete list of keywords:

  AND           FILE     NOT
  BASIC         FLOAT    OR
  BEGINMODULE   FOR      REF
  CONSTANT      GLOBAL   STRING
  DO            GOTO     STEP
  ELIF          IF       THEN
  ELSE          INT      TO
  ENDFOR        LOCAL    VAR
  ENDIF         MODULE   VECTOR
  ENDMODULE     MACRO

Identifiers

Identifiers are used for things that you want to give a name, like the name of a module or a parameter. MBS also has a large number of predefined identifiers. Identifiers may consist of any number of characters but only 31 are significant. The following characters may be used but the first character of an identifier should always be a letter, not a digit or underscore.

Letters:

  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Å Ä Ö
  a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z å ä ö

Digits:

  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Underscore:

Here are some valid identifiers:

  D2 wheel_size A12345B_cdefg99

Lower or upper case letters in identifiers are normally not significant. A76BB is the same as a76BB or a76bb. Note however, that the identifier used as the name of a module is also the name of a (MBO-)file on disc. On Unix systems where case is significant in file names case becomes significant also for names of modules. On Microsoft Windows systems where case is not significant in file names we still recommend that you differ between upper and lower case in module names. One day you might want to run your modules on a system where case is significant. Note also that when you compile a MBS program, the MBO file created by the compiler will get the same name as the identifier in the module declaration, not the same name as the MBS file, if they differ.

All names of functions and procedures in MBS are predefined identifiers. The FLOAT constant pi is also a predefined identifier. Note that if you declare a variable of your own with the same name as a predefined identifier, your own declaration will overrule the original declaration. It is therefore recommended that you are careful not to use the names of built in functions and procedures for your own declarations.

The module_attribute

A module_attribute is either LOCAL, GLOBAL, BASIC or MACRO. If no module_attribute is specified a default of GLOBAL will be used. A LOCAL module needs a coordinate system specified when called and will use this coordinate system as its global system. A GLOBAL or BASIC module should not be called with a coordinate system. A GLOBAL module automatically inherits the global system of the caller and a BASIC module uses the basic system. A MACRO module can only be called by another MACRO and is typically used for non modeling purposes like user interfaces, analysis programs, machine control etc.

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