All expressions are evaluated using floating-point arithmetic.
The + and - operators have lower precedence than *, / and MOD (modulus), which have equal precedence and are evaluated left to right. ! (factorial) has the highest precedence. There is no exponentiation operator (use the POW() function instead).
There are two mathematical constants, e, Euler's number, 2.71281828, and PI, 3.14159265.
It is possible to use variables or dimensioned variables in expressions.
Typical expressions are
10 - absolute value 10
x - value of variable x
(x + y) * 2 - add x to y and multiply by two
array(1,2) - value of array element 1, 2
POW( x + y, 2) + array(1, LEN(A$)) - raise x + y to the power 2 and
add an element of the array "array" given by 1 and the length of A$.
MOD calculates the floating point modulus of a number. Both sides of the expression should be of the same sign. x MOD 0 is an error. Division by zero is also an error.
Floating point arithmetic is not exact, so expressions such as SQRT(2.0) * SQRT(2.0) may not be exactly whole numbers. Using the function INT(x + 0.5) you can force an expression to be the nearest exact integer.
Arrays are stored with the x dimension in the first column. This matters when initialising an 2d array with a list of values.
10 DIM a(4,4) = 1, 2, 3, 4,
will create an ascending list in a(x,y) order.
5, 6, 7, 8
9, 10, 11, 12,
13, 14, 15, 16
Array indices start from 1 and finish at the dimension size. Thus a(1,1) is the first element of the array, and a(4.4) the highest.
Note that there must be no space between an array name and the first parenthesis.
All strings are stored internally in ASCII format, as NUL-terminated arrays. Use of extremely large strings is likely to slow down the program, since most operations involve internal copying of strings.
A string literal consists of one or more concatenated quotes. A string can be spread over several lines, but the newline character is not allowed inside quotes. To enclose a quotation mark in astring, use double quotes.
10 LET A$ = "And God said ""Let there be light"" "
"and there was light." "And God saw the light, that it was good."
is an example of a legal string. Note that the start of the second line contains white space at the beginning to tell the interpreter it is a continuation of the previous line.
To add a newline or other control character, use the CHR$() function. Note that CHR$(0) will prematurely terminate the string. Use the ASCII() function to perform numerical manipulation on characters.
e.g. LET B$ = CHR$( ASCII(B$) + 1) will set B$ to the next
letter of the alphabet.
The + operator will concatenate strings.
10 PRINT "Fred" + "Bloggs" + CHR$(42) + x$
Will print FredBloggs* followed by the contents of x$
Functions with names ending in "$" always return strings. Parentheses
are not optional.
Relational expressions are used only in IF ... THEN statements to make conditional jumps.
A relational expression evaluates to either true or false. The allowed operators a =, <> (doesn't equal), >, >=, <, <=.
With expressions the comparison is numerical, and with strings it is alphabetical. Both sides of a relational operator must be of the same type.
Relational expressions can contain the keywords AND and OR. Order of evaluation is left to right, but parentheses should always be used to disambiguate mixed expressions.
Examples of use
10 IF (x <= 5 AND x > 0) OR x = 10 THEN 100