BASIC stamp manual v2.2

5: BASIC Stamp Command Reference – DEBUG

BASIC Stamp Syntax and Reference Manual 2.2 • www.parallax.com • Page 165

but typing the name of the variables in quotes (for the display) can get a

little tedious. A special formatter, the question mark (?), can save you a lot

of time. The code below does exactly the same thing (with less typing):

x VAR Byte

y VAR Byte

x = 100

y = 250

DEBUG DEC ? x ' Show decimal value of x

DEBUG DEC ? y ' Show decimal value of y

The display would look something like this:

x = 100

y = 250

The ? formatter always displays data in the form "symbol = value"

(followed by a carriage return). In addition, it defaults to displaying in

decimal, so we really only needed to type: DEBUG ? x for the above

code. You can, of course, use any of the three number systems. For

example: DEBUG HEX ? x or DEBUG BIN ? y.

It's important to note that the "symbol" it displays is taken directly from

what appears to the right of the ?. If you were to use an expression, for

example: DEBUG ? x*10/2+3 in the above code, the display would

show: "x*10/2+3 = 503".

A special formatter, ASC, is also available for use only with the ? formatter

to display ASCII characters, as in: DEBUG ASC ? x.

What if you need to display a table of data; multiple rows and columns?

The Signed/Unsigned code (above) approaches this but, if you notice, the

columns don't line up. The number formatters (DEC, HEX and BIN) have

some useful variations to make the display fixed-width (see Table 5.12).

Up to 5 digits can be displayed for decimal numbers. To fix the value to a

specific number of decimal digits, you can use DEC1, DEC2, DEC3, DEC4

or DEC5. For example:

x VAR Byte

x = 165

DEBUG DEC5 x ' Show decimal value of x in 5 digits

ISPLAYING FIXED-WIDTH NUMBERS.