Comments on: SQR Without Literals

By: administrator

administrator — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:49:28 +0000

There are a variety of old commands that the SQR Language Reference lists as “not recommended.” They have been deprecated for at least ten years but the old syntax is still supported.

By: Bob Josephson

Bob Josephson — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:48:05 +0000

I don’t know if anyone who actually works on the SQR compiler is reading this, but perhaps the ability to redefine constants should be deprecated (meaning that in the next version of the compiler, it generates warnings and, in future versions it generates errors).

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sat, 30 May 2009 23:03:02 +0000

Yes, either type of #DEFINE can be done twice. (What might not be clear to people reading my code sample is that it’s LEGAL but BAD. The constant value will be 2 in both calls to My-Proc assuming that My-Proc is defined later in the file.) I suppose that it doesn’t matter to the compiler if there are multiple definitions of a constant, unlike for example multiple definitions of a procedure.

By: administrator

administrator — Sat, 30 May 2009 04:20:49 +0000

Kevin, it’s great to hear from you again, and thanks for the encouragement. I’m really surprised to see your code sample. I have a memory from long ago of the compiler complaining about defining something twice. Was that just for constants defined to exist like below, or am I thinking of another language entirely?

#define UNIX

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 29 May 2009 06:11:02 +0000

A minor quibble, but constants can be defined multiple times and their values can change, although fortunately this is rare. What seems to confuse people at first is that constants are resolved at “compile” time and so putting a #DEFINE under an IF, for example, is sort of nonsense. I’ve seen code like this:

#define a_value_my_proc_will_use 1
do My-Proc
#define a_value_my_proc_will_use 2
do My-Proc

As to the other item–hi from:
Kevin Reschenberg
Independent consultant in PeopleSoft technical work (and a former PeopleSoft employee)
Orange County, California
sparkpath.com and sqr-info.com

Thanks for your very interesting blog. I really appreciate the level of detail and well-thought-out opinions.

By: administrator

administrator — Tue, 26 May 2009 17:07:24 +0000

It’s a good idea to give visual cues, but the variable vs. constant issue is already clear in SQR. Variables must begin with #, $, %, or &, and they are the only objects that may begin with those characters. Constants must be enclosed with curly brackets {}, and they are the only objects that may be enclosed with those characters.

Thank you for giving us your name, Bob. But as we saw on Babylon 5, that doesn’t answer the question “Who are you?”

By: Bob Josephson

Bob Josephson — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:44:45 +0000

Constants are great, but when I look at the code, it would be nice to know instantly whether an element is a variable or a constant. In C, the convention (not enforced by the compiler) is to put constants in all caps. Would that be of value in SQR?

As for who I am… I’m Bob Josephson. Aren’t I?

As for what I want… as Kosh would say, “never ask that question.”