Miscellaneous Statements and Functions

The INPUT CTRL statement allows the programmer to toggle the acceptance of control characters in terminal input.

The SLEEP and RQM statements suspend program execution for a number of seconds, or until a specified time of day.

The ECHO statement toggles the echo feature for the attached process.

The REM, *, and ! statements allow comment lines to be placed in the source code. This statement allows the programmer to document code and make it more accessible to future modification.

The PROCREAD and PROCWRITE statements allow the program to read to and write from the primary input buffer of the calling  Proc.

The LINESTATUS function returns information on the DTR and RTS signals on a specified line. This information is important for communication programs that need to know if a device (such as a modem) is properly connected.

The USER_DEFINED function allows the programmer to create mvBASIC functions that may be used in any expression in the mvBASIC program. This function accepts any number of input expressions and always returns a single value.

Conversion Codes (ICONV, OCONV)

The ICONV function translates a string from external to internal format, according to the INFO/ACCESS conversion codes. The conversion codes supported are those for dates, time, hexadecimal, and table translation. The OCONV function translates back from internal to external format. See INFO/ACCESS for more information on conversion codes.

The SENTENCE ( ) Function

The SENTENCE( ) function returns the TCL or Proc statement used to invoke the mvBASIC program that contains the function.

The SYSTEM Function

The SYSTEM function returns significant information about the system. Some information made available by SYSTEM follows:

Entering the Debugger

If the BREAK key is pressed during program execution, the user will be placed in the mvBASIC Debugger. This feature can be disabled and reinstated with the BREAK statement. The BREAK statement does not simply toggle the break feature, it also increments and decrements the Break Inhibit Counter.

Alternative ways of entering the Debugger are to use the D option to the RUN command or to place a DEBUG statement directly in the source code.

See Using the mvBASIC Debugger for a full description of Debugger commands and how they are used.

See Also

Overview of mvBASIC Statements and Functions

Assignment Statements

Intrinsic Functions

Internal Program Control

External Program Control

Sending Output to the Screen and Printer

Terminal Input

Dynamic Array Processing

Generalized String Processing

Dimensioned Arrays

Reading and Updating File Items

Reading and Writing Tapes or Floppy Disks

Communications

Execution Locks

Compiler Directives

The Error Message Processor