HP 3000 Manuals HP 3000 Manuals
Chapter 4 LANGUAGES
Introducing HP Business BASIC/XL
by Harry Muttart
Data and Languages Division
HP Business BASIC/XL is now available with XL Release 2.0. It provides
serious and casual BASIC users with a rich development environment, which
includes an interpreter for fast development and powerful debugging and a
compiler that produces fast, efficient code. The product also includes
tools that assist code and data migration from BASIC/V and BASIC/260.
Business BASIC/XL is highly compatible with Business BASIC/V, which has
been available to MPE V/E customers since T-Delta-2. New capabilities
and features include:
* LARGE PROGRAM MODULES - Run programs with very large subunits
(>10,000 lines) in the interpreter. This is particularly valuable to
customers migrating from BASIC/V and BASIC/260. Compile the largest
subunits that run under the interpreter. There is no longer a need
to break up existing modules to make compiled subunits executable, as
was sometimes required when using the MPE V/E version on classic
3000's.
* CALLING EXTERNALS and INTRINSICS - Support is provided for directly
calling external routines written in HP-C and for calling external
Pascal routines including those that are option extensible and those
with default parameters.
* FLOATING POINT DATA - Provide support for handling of IEEE and MPE
V/E floating point data types within the same subunit. This support
is provided implicitly by the runtime library (BDATA files) and
explicitly by providing extensions to the PACKFMT statement to handle
other cases including interfacing with TurboIMAGE/XL.
* SYSTEM COMMAND AND STATEMENT EXTENSION - An improved interface with
the operating system supports implicit program execution and
execution of user defined commands and command files.
* NEW SYSTEM COMMANDS - From the system command interpreter there is a
set of new commands available for Business BASIC/XL: run the
interpreter (BBXL), run the compiler (BBXLCOMP), compile and link
(BBXLLK), and compile, link and run (BBXLGO).
* MORE COMPREHENSIVE DOCUMENTATION - The Language Reference has been
substantially reorganized and enhanced. The Migration Guide has been
greatly expanded to provide often-requested information.
A COMPLETE COMMERCIAL LANGUAGE
Business BASIC/XL also offers all of the features which made Business
BASIC/V a productive programming environment. The interpreter provides
the features of a debugger, a calculator, a program editor, a
cross-reference, and an execution environment. The current program in
the interpreter can be compiled and executed without leaving the
environment. An extensive online Help facility is available to answer
common syntax and use questions without resorting to manuals.
The programming language is rich in its own right. It has modern
programming language control structures (IF-THEN-ELSE-ENDIF,
WHILE-ENDWHILE, REPEAT-UNTIL, LOOP-ENDLOOP, SELECT-CASE), separate
procedure and function subprograms with parameters to support modular
programming, support for calling routines written in other languages (C,
Pascal, Fortran, COBOL), support for calling system INTRINSICS, and use
of common (COM) to provide static global data. Business BASIC supports
seven data types (SHORT INTEGER, INTEGER, SHORT REAL, REAL, SHORT
DECIMAL, DECIMAL, and STRING) and long identifier names that aid in
documentation. There are sets of statements built into the language to
interface with TurboIMAGE/XL, VPLUS, KSAM, and BASIC/260 forms. Other
statements provide support for data base searching and sorting, softkeys,
accessing terminal display memory, and program error handling.