Language Elements and Reference:xpplrm
Declarations Foundation
Declarations are used to associate a program element with a symbolic name or identifier. Declarations define identifiers for variables. They also identify to the compiler a section of code as a function, procedure, class or method. Declarations cause no operations.
In the case of variables, declarations also specify the variable type (whether it is a lexical or dynamic memory variable) and whether the compiler is to reference a field variable using the identifier.
When an identifier is declared for a section of the program, this section of the program runs whenever the identifier is used in program code.
Declarations appear in program code as statements starting with keywords. The keywords for declarations are listed in the following table:
Keywords for declarations
| Declaration | Description |
|---|---|
| STATIC | Define visibility of program sections and lifetime of lexical variables |
| LOCAL | Define visibility and lifetime of lexical variables |
| PROCEDURE | Declare section of code as a procedure |
| FUNCTION | Declare user-defined function (UDF) |
| MEMVAR | Declare identifier for dynamic memory variable |
| FIELD | Declare identifier for field variable |
| CLASS | Declare class function and commence class declaration |
| VAR | Declare identifier for instance variable |
| CLASS VAR | Declare identifier for class variable |
| METHOD | Declare identifier for instance method |
| CLASS METHOD | Declare identifier for class method |
| ENDCLASS | End of class declaration |
| METHOD | Declare identifier for the program code of an instance method |
| CLASS METHOD | Declare identifier for the program code of a class method |
| PARAMETERS | Create parameters as variables of the PRIVATE type |
| PRIVATE | Create dynamic memory variable of the PRIVATE type |
| PUBLIC | Create dynamic memory variable of the PUBLIC type |
A detailed description of these declarations is found in the reference documentation about "Class declaration".
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