HP BASIC for OpenVMS Version 1.6
Software
Product
Description
PRODUCT NAME: HP BASIC for OpenVMS
SPD 25.36.39
This Software Product Description describes the follow-
ing products:
• HP BASIC Version 1.6 for OpenVMS Alpha Systems
(formerly Compaq BASIC)
• HP BASIC Version 3.9 for OpenVMS VAX Systems
(formerly Compaq BASIC)
• HP BASIC Version 1.6 for OpenVMS Integrity
Servers (I64)
The short forms ‘‘Alpha BASIC’’, ‘‘VAX BASIC’’, and ‘‘I64
BASIC’’ are frequently used to refer to these product
names.
DESCRIPTION
HP BASIC is a shareable language processor for the
OpenVMS operating system. It can be invoked as a
compiler and the resulting modules can be linked and
run with standard OpenVMS commands. HP BASIC
provides high performance for application development
by generating inline native mode instructions. HP BA-
SIC is also integrated with various programming pro-
ductivity tools such as the OpenVMS Debugger, the
Language-Sensitive Editor (LSE), the Source Code An-
alyzer (SCA) and the Performance and Coverage Ana-
lyzer.
Alpha BASIC and I64 BASIC include three IEEE floating
point data types (SFLOAT, TFLOAT, and XFLOAT) and
a QUAD integer data type.
FEATURES
HP BASIC is integrated into the Common Language En-
vironment. This integration provides HP BASIC users
with:
• Support for OpenVMS interlanguage calling standard
• Access to all OpenVMS system services
• Access to the facilities of the OpenVMS Debugger
• Callable interfaces to the OpenVMS Run-Time Li-
brary
• Support for the Language-Sensitive Editor
• Structured programming constructs
— Line numbers completely optional.
— DECLARE statement which removes requirement
for (%) and ($) suffixes.
— IF...THEN...ELSE...END IF conditional blocks.
— SELECT...CASE...END SELECT multi-way deci-
sion blocks.
— OTHERWISE out-of-range clause for ON GOTO
and ON GOSUB statements.
— Structured exception handling (WHEN blocks) for
main and subprograms.
— Statement modifiers to control the execution of a
single statement.
— PROGRAM, SUB, and FUNCTION statements to
declare program modules.
— END and EXIT PROGRAM statements to return
a status to DCL.
September, 2006