PPWIZARD Manual
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Rexx Variables

You can get a (slighty out of date) regina rexx manual from http://sites.netscape.net/ssatguru, this has HTML and compiled Windows Help formats for download.

Rexx unlike many other programming languages does not require its variables to be predefined and there is only one type (string). A number is just a string of characters.

Variable names can be any reasonable length and can contain the letters 'A' to 'Z', the digits '0' to '9' or any of "!?_" (digits can't start a variable name).

In PPWIZARD you must not try to use the value of a variable which does not exist or it will trap with a "NOVALUE" abort and output diagnostic information which should spell out your problem.

I very much recommend that you don't use simple rexx variable names such as "Count". This is dangerous as it may clash with PPWIZARD variables. If this occurs it will probably be very difficult to diagnose and PPWIZARD (and your code) will probably malfunction in unpredictable ways.

No PPWIZARD variables start with '_' and for this reason I recommend that you preceed all variable names with this character. For example instead of 'Count' use '_Count'.

All rexx variables you define are global, as are those used by PPWIZARD. This gives a lot of its power but it can also be dangerous. Always try to be aware of this fact.

You also need to be aware that PPWIZARD may modify the rexx RC or RESULT variables that you believe has been set by an #evaluate command. Do not rely on these variables, set your own (of course within a single #evaluate PPWIZARD will not touch these variables).

Some examples of giving rexx variables a value:

       #evaluate ^^   ^_Count   = 1^             ;;Both this and next line set value to the number 1
       #evaluate ^^   ^_Count   = '1'^
       #evaluate ^^   ^_Count   = _Count + 1^    ;;Increase value by 1
       #evaluate ^^   ^_Array.1 = 'a value'^
       #evaluate ^^   ^_Fred    = "a value"^
    


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PPWIZARD Manual
My whole website and this manual itself was developed using PPWIZARD (free preprocessor written by Dennis Bareis)
Tuesday January 02 2001 at 7:37am