SysIII/usr/src/man/man1/bs.1

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.TH BS 1
.SH NAME
bs \- a compiler/interpreter for modest-sized programs
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B bs
[ file [ args ] ]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Bs\^
is a remote descendant of Basic and Snobol4
with a little C language thrown in.
.I Bs\^
is designed for programming tasks where program development time
is as important as the resulting speed of execution.
Formalities of data declaration and file/process manipulation
are minimized.
Line-at-a-time debugging, the
.I trace\^
and
.I dump\^pile\^
and
.I execute\^
below).
Unless the final operation is assignment,
the result of an immediate expression statement is printed.
.PP
.I Bs\^
programs are made up of input lines.
If the last character on a line is a \f3\e\fP, the line is continued.
.I Bs\^
accepts lines of the following form:
.PP
.RS
statement
.br
label  statement
.RE
.PP
A label is a
.I name\^
(see below)
followed by a colon.
A label and a variable can have the same name.
.PP
A
.I bs\^
statement is either an
expression
or a keyword followed by zero or more expressions.
Some keywords
.RI ( clear ,
.IR compile ,
.IR ! ,
.IR execute ,
.IR include ,
.IR ibase ,
.IR obase ,
and
.IR run )
are always executed as they are compiled.
.PP
.B "Statement Syntax:"
.HP 3
expression
.br
The expression is executed for its side
effects (value, assignment or function call).
The details of expressions follow the description of
statement types below.
.HP 3
.B break
.br
.I Break\^
exits from the inner-most
.I for/while\^
loop.
.HP 3
.B clear
.br
Clears the symbol table and compiled statements.
.I Clear\^
is executed immediately.
.HP 3
.B compile
[ expression ]
.br
Succeeding statements are compiled
(overrides the immediate execution default).
The optional expression is evaluated and used as a file
name for further input.
A
.I clear\^
is associated with this latter case.
.I Compile\^
is executed immediately.
.HP 3
.B continue
.br
.I Continue\^
transfers to the loop-continuation
of the current
.I for/while\^
loop.
.HP 3
.B dump
.br
The
name and current value of every
non-local
variable is printed.
After an error or interrupt, the number of the last
statement and (possibly) the user-function trace are displayed.
.HP 3
.B exit
[ expression ]
.br
Return to system level.
The
expression
is returned as process status.
.HP 3
.B execute
.br
Change to immediate execution mode
(an interrupt has a similar effect).
This statement does not cause stored statements to execute (see
.I run\^
below).
.ne 8
.HP 3
.B for
name
.B =
expression expression statement
.br
.ns
.HP 3
.B for
name
.B =
expression expression
.br
\&.\|.\|.
.br
.ns
.HP 3
.B next
.HP 3
.B for
expression
.B ,
expression
.B ,
expression  statement
.br
.br
.ns
.HP 3
.B for
expression
.B ,
expression
.B ,
expression
.br
\&.\|.\|.
.br
.ns
.HP 3
.B next
.br
The
.I for\^
statement
repetitively executes a
statement (first form)
or a group of statements (second form)
under control of a named variable.
The variable takes on the value of
the first expression,
then is incremented by one on each loop,
not to exceed the value of
the second expression.
The third and fourth forms require three expressions
separated by commas.
The first of these is the initialization, the second
is the test (true to continue), and the third is the
loop-continuation action (normally an increment).
.HP 3
.B fun
f(\|[\|a,
\&.\|.\|. ]\|) [\|v,
\&.\|.\|. ]
.br
\&.\|.\|.
.br
.br
.ns
.HP 3
.B nuf
.br
.I Fun\^
defines the function name, arguments, and local variables
for a user-written function.
Up to ten arguments and local variables are allowed.
Such names cannot be arrays, nor can they be I/O associated.
Function definitions may not be nested.
.HP 3
.B freturn
.br
A way to signal the failure of a user-written function.
See the interrogation operator (\f3?\fP) below.
If interrogation is not present,
.I freturn\^
merely returns zero.
When interrogation
.I is\^
active,
.I freturn\^
transfers to that expression
(possibly by-passing intermediate function returns).
.HP 3
.B ibase
.I N\^
.br
.I Ibase\^
sets the input base (radix) to
.IR N .
The only supported values for
.I N\^
are
.BR 8 ,
.B 10
(the default), and
.BR 16 .
Hexadecimal values 10\-15 are entered as
.BR a \- f .
A leading digit is required
(i.e.,
.B f0a
must be entered as
.BR 0f0a ).
.I Ibase\^
(and
.IR obase ", below)"
are executed immediately.
.HP 3
.B goto
name
.br
Control is passed to the internally stored statement
with the matching label.
.HP 3
.B if
expression statement
.br
.ns
.HP 3
.B if
expression
.br
\&.\|.\|.
.br
.ns
.HP 3
[
.B else
.br
\&.\|.\|.
]
.br
.ns
.HP 3
.B f\&i
.br
The statement (first form)
or group of statements (second form)
is executed if the expression evaluates
to non-zero.
The strings
.B 0
and "" (null) evaluate as zero.
In the second form,
an optional
.I else\^
allows for a group of statements to be
executed when the first group is not.
The only statement permitted on the same line with an
.I else\^
is an
.IR if ;
only other
.IR f\&i "'s can be on the same line with a"
.IR f\&i .
The
elision of
.I else\^
and
.I if\^
into an
.I elif\^
is supported.
Only a single
.I f\&i\^
is required to close an
.IR "if .\|.\|. elif .\|.\|. " "[" " else .\|.\|. " "] sequence."
.HP 3
.BR include " expression"
.br
The expression must evaluate to a file name.
The file must contain
.I bs\^
Such statements become part of the program being compiled.
source statements.
.I Include\^
statements may not be nested.
.HP 3
.B obase
.I N\^
.br
.I Obase\^
sets the input base to
.I N\^
(see
.I ibase\^
above).
.HP 3
.B onintr
label
.br
.ns
.HP 3
.B onintr
.br
The
.I onintr\^
command
provides program control of interrupts.
In the first form,
control will pass to the label given,
just as if a
.I goto\^
had been executed at the time
.I onintr\^
was executed.
The effect of the statement is cleared after each interrupt.
In the second form,
an interrupt will cause
.I bs\^
to terminate.
.HP 3
.B return
[expression]
.br
The expression is evaluated and the result is passed
back as the value of a function call.
If no expression is given, zero is returned.
.HP 3
.B run
.br
The random number generator is reset.
Control is passed to the first internal
statement.
If the
.I run\^
statement is contained in a file, it should be the
last statement.
.HP 3
.B stop
.br
Execution of internal statements is stopped.
.I Bs\^
reverts to immediate mode.
.HP 3
.B trace
[ expression ]
.br
The
.I trace\^
statement controls function tracing.
If the expression is null (or evaluates to zero), tracing is turned off.
Otherwise,
a record of user-function calls/returns will be printed.
Each
.I return\^
decrements the
.I trace\^
expression value.
.HP 3
.B while
expression  statement
.br
.br
.ns
.HP 3
.B while
expression
.br
\&.\|.\|.
.br
.br
.ns
.HP 3
.B next
.br
.I While\^
is similar to
.I for\^
except that only the conditional expression
for loop-continuation is given.
.HP 3
.B !
shell command
.br
An immediate escape to the Shell.
.HP 3
.B #
\&.\|.\|.
.br
This statement is ignored.
It is used to interject commentary in a program.
.PP
.B "Expression Syntax:"
.HP 3
name
.br
A name is used to specify a variable.
Names are composed of a letter
(upper or lower case)
optionally
followed by letters and digits.
Only the first six characters of a name are significant.
Except for names declared in
.I fun\^
statements,
all names are global to the program.
Names can take on numeric
(double float) values, string values,
or can be associated with input/output
(see the built-in function
.IR open (\|)
below).
.HP 3
name
.B (
[expression [
.B ,
expression] .\|.\|. ]
.B )
.br
Functions
can be called by a name followed by the arguments
in parentheses separated by commas.
Except for built-in functions (listed below),
the name must
be defined with a
.I fun\^
statement.
Arguments to functions are passed by value.
.HP 3
name
.B [
expression
[
.B ,
expression
] .\|.\|.
.B ]
.br
This syntax is used reference either arrays or tables
(see built-in
.I table\^
functions below).
For arrays, each expression is truncated to an integer
and used as a specifier for the name.
The resulting array reference is syntactically identical to a name;
.B a[1,2]
is the same as
.BR a[1][2] .
The truncated expressions are restricted to
values between 0 and 32767.
.HP 3
number
.br
A number is used to represent a constant value.
A number is written in Fortran style,
and contains digits, an optional decimal point,
and possibly a scale factor consisting
of an
.B e
followed by a possibly signed exponent.
.HP 3
string
.br
Character strings are delimited by \f3"\fP characters.
The \f3\e\fP escape character allows the double quote (\^\f3\e"\fP),
new-line (\^\f3\en\fP), carriage return (\^\f3\er\fP), backspace (\^\f3\eb\fP), and tab (\^\f3\et\fP)
characters
to appear in a string.
Otherwise, \f3\e\fP stands for itself.
.HP 3
.B (
expression
.B )
.br
Parentheses are used to alter the normal order of evaluation.
.HP 3
.B (
.RB expression ,
expression
.RB [ ,
expression .\|.\|. ]
.B ") ["
expression
.B ]
.br
The bracketed expression is used as a subscript to select a
comma-separated expression from the parenthesized list.
List elements are numbered from the left, starting at zero.
The expression:
.IP "" 10
( False, True )[ a == b ]
.IP "" 3
has the value
.B True
if the comparison is true.
.HP 3
.B ?
expression
.br
The interrogation operator
tests for the success of the expression rather than its value.
At the moment, it is useful for testing
end-of-file
(see examples in the
.I "Programming Tips\^"
section below),
the result of the
.I eval\^
built-in function,
and for checking the return from user-written functions
(see
.IR freturn ).
An interrogation ``trap'' (end-of-file,
etc.)
causes an immediate transfer to the most recent
interrogation, possibly skipping assignment statements or intervening
function levels.
.HP 3
.BR \- " expression"
.br
The result is the negation of the expression.
.HP 3
.BR ++ " name"
.br
Increments the value of the variable (or array reference).
The result is the new value.
.HP 3
.BR \-\- " name"
.br
Decrements the value of the variable.  The result is the new value.
.HP 3
.B !
expression
.br
The logical negation of the expression.
Watch out for the shell escape command.
.HP 3
expression
.I operator\^
expression
.br
Common functions of two arguments are abbreviated
by the two arguments separated by an operator denoting the function.
Except for the assignment,
concatenation, and relational operators, both operands are converted to numeric form
before the function is applied.
.PP
.B "Binary Operators"
(in increasing precedence):
.HP 3
.B =
.br
.B =
is the assignment operator.
The left operand must be a name or an array element.
The result is the right operand.
Assignment binds right to left,
all other operators bind left to right.
.HP 3
.B \(ul
.br
.B \(ul
(underscore)
is the concatenation operator.
.HP 3
.B &\  \(bv
.br
.B &
(logical and)
has result zero if either of its arguments are zero.
It has result one if both of its arguments are non-zero; \(bv
(logical or)
has result zero if both of its arguments are zero.
It has result one if either of its arguments is non-zero.
Both operators treat a null string as a zero.
.HP 3
.B <\  <=\  >\  >=\  ==\  !=
.br
The relational operators
(\f3<\fP less than, \f3<=\fP less than or equal,
\f3>\fP greater than,
\f3>=\fP greater than or equal,
\f3==\fP equal to,
\f3!=\fP not equal to)
return one if their arguments are in the specified
relation.
They return zero otherwise.
Relational operators at the same level extend as follows:
.I a>b>c\^
is the same as
.IR "a>b & b>c" .
A string comparison is made if both operands are strings.
.HP 3
.B +\  \-
.br
Add and subtract.
.HP 3
.B \(**\  /\  %
.br
Multiply, divide, and remainder.
.HP 3
.ne 5
\*^
.br
Exponentiation.
.ne 6
.PP
.B "Built-in Functions:"
.PP
.ce
.I "Dealing with arguments\^"
.HP 3
.B arg(i)
.br
is the value of the
.IR i -th
actual parameter on the current level
of function call.
At level zero,
.I arg\^
returns the
.IR i -th
command-line argument
.RI ( arg (0)
returns
.BR bs ).
.HP 3
.B narg(\|)
.br
returns the number of arguments passed.
At level zero, the command argument count is returned.
.PP
.ce
.I "Mathematical\^"
.HP 3
.B abs(x)
.br
is the absolute value of
.IR x .
.HP 3
.B atan(x)
.br
is the arctangent of
.IR x .
Its value
is between \-\(*p/2 and \(*p/2.
.HP 3
.B ceil(x)
.br
returns
the smallest integer not less than
.IR x .
.HP 3
.B cos(x)
.br
is the cosine of
.I x\^
(radians).
.HP 3
.B exp(x)
.br
is the exponential function of
.IR x .
.HP 3
.B floor(x)
.br
returns
the largest integer not greater than
.IR x .
.HP 3
.B log(x)
.br
is the natural logarithm of
.IR x .
.HP 3
.B rand(\|)
.br
is a uniformly distributed random
number between zero and one.
.HP 3
.B sin(x)
.br
is the sine of
.I x\^
(radians).
.HP 3
.B sqrt(x)
.br
is the square root of
.IR x .
.PP
.ce
.I "String operations\^"
.HP 3
.B size(s)
.br
the size (length in bytes) of
.I s\^
is returned.
.HP 3
.B "format(f, a)"
.br
returns the formatted value of
.IR a .
.I F\^
is assumed to be a format specification in the style of
.IR printf (3S).
Only the
.BR %\|.\|.\|.\|f ,
.BR %\|.\|.\|.\|e ,
and
.B %\|.\|.\|.\|s
types are safe.
.HP 3
.B "index(x, y)"
.br
returns the number of the first position in
.I x\^
that any of the characters from
.I y\^
matches.
No match yields zero.
.HP 3
.B "trans(s, f, t)"
.br
Translates characters of the source
.I s\^
from
matching characters in
.I f\^
to a character in the same position in
.IR t .
Source characters that do not appear in
.I f\^
are copied to the result.
If the string
.I f\^
is longer than
.IR t ,
source characters that match in the excess portion of
.I f\^
do not appear in the result.
.HP 3
.B "substr(s, start, width)"
.br
returns the sub-string of
.I s\^
defined by the
.IR start ing
position and
.IR width .
.HP 3
.B "match(string, pattern)"
.br
.ns
.HP 3
.B mstring(n)
.br
The
.I pattern\^
is similar to the regular expression syntax of the
.IR ed (1)
command.
The characters \f3.\fP, \f3[\fP, \f3]\fP, \*^ (inside
brackets), \f3\(**\fP and \f3$\fP are special.
The
.I mstring\^
function returns the \f2n\^\fP-th (1 <= \f2n\^\fP <= 10) substring of the subject
that occurred between pairs of the pattern symbols \f3\e(\fP and \f3\e)\fP
for the most recent call to
.IR match .
To succeed, patterns must match the beginning of the string
(as if all patterns began with \*^).
The function
returns the number of characters matched.
For example:
.IP "" 10
match("a123ab123", ".\(**\e([a\-z]\e)") == 6
.br
mstring(1) == "b"
.PP
.ce
.I "File handling\^"
.HP 3
.B "open(name, file, function)"
.br
.br
.ns
.HP 3
.B close(name)
.br
The
.I name\^
argument must be a
.I bs\^
variable name (passed as a string).
For the
.IR open ,
the
.I file\^
argument
may be
.BR 1) " a 0 (zero), 1, or 2 representing standard input, output,"
or error output, respectively,
.BR 2) " a string representing a file name,"
or
.BR 3) ""
a string beginning with an \f3!\fP representing a command to be executed
(via
.IR "sh \-c" ).
The
.I function\^
argument
must be either
.B r
(read),
.B w
(write),
.B W
(write without new-line),
or
.B a
(append).
After a
.IR close ,
the
.I name\^
reverts to being an ordinary variable.
The initial associations are:
.IP "" 10
open("get", 0, "r")
.br
open("put", 1, "w")
.br
open("puterr", 2, "w")
.IP "" 3
Examples are given in the following section.
.HP 3
.B "access(s, m)"
.br
executes
.IR access (2).
.HP 3
.B ftype(s)
.br
returns a single character file type indication:
.B f
for regular file,
.B d
for directory,
.B b
for block special,
or
.B c
for character special.
.PP
.ce
.I "Tables\^"
.HP 3
.B "table(name, size)"
.br
A table in
.I bs\^
is an associatively accessed, single-dimension array.
``Subscripts'' (called keys)
are strings (numbers are converted).
The
.I name\^
argument must be a
.I bs\^
variable name
(passed as a string).
The
.I size\^
argument sets the minimum number of elements to be allocated.
.I Bs\^
prints an error message and stops on table overflow.
.HP 3
.B item(name, i)
.ns
.HP 3
.B key()
.br
The
.I item\^
function accesses table elements sequentially
(in normal use, there is no orderly progression of key values).
Where the
.I item\^
function accesses
values, the
.I key\^
function accesses the ``subscript'' of the previous
.I item\^
call.
The
.I name\^
argument should not be quoted.
Since exact table sizes are not defined, the interrogation operator should be used
to detect end-of-table, for example:
.IP "" 10
table("t", 100)
.br
\ \|.\|.\|.
.br
# If
.I word\^
contains "party", the following expression adds one to the count
.br
# of that word:
.br
++t[word]
.br
\ \|.\|.\|.
.br
# To print out the the key/value pairs:
.br
for i = 0, ?(s = item(t, i)), ++i \  if key() \ put = key()_":"_s
.HP 3
.B "iskey(name, word")
.br
The
.I iskey\^
function tests whether the key
.B word
exists in the table
.B name
and returns one for true, zero for false.
.PP
.ce
.I "Odds and ends\^"
.HP 3
.B eval(s)
.br
The string argument is evaluated as a
.I bs\^
expression.
The function is handy for converting numeric strings to
numeric internal form.
.I Eval\^
can also be used as a crude form of indirection, as in:
.IP "" 10
name = "xyz"
.br
eval("++"\(ul name)
.IP "" 3
which increments the variable
.IR xyz .
In addition,
.I eval\^
preceded by the interrogation operator permits
the user to control
.I bs\^
error conditions.
For example:
.IP "" 10
?eval("open(\e"\s-1X\s+1\e", \e"\s-1XXX\s+1\e", \e"r\e")")
.IP "" 3
returns the value zero if there is no file named ``\s-1XXX\s+1''
(instead of halting the user's program).
The following executes a
.I goto\^
to the label
.I L\^
(if it exists):
.IP "" 10
label="L"
.br
if !(?eval("goto "\(ul label)) puterr = "no label"
.HP 3
.B "plot(request, args)"
.br
The
.I plot\^
function produces output on devices
recognized by
.IR tplot (1G).
The
.I requests\^
are as follows:
.PP
.RS 7
.I "Call                                     Function\^"
.IP "plot(0, term)" 28
causes
further
.I plot\^
output to be piped into
.IR tplot (1G)
with an argument of
.BI \-T term.
.IP plot(1) 28
``erases'' the plotter.
.IP "plot(2, string)" 28
labels the current point with
.IR string .
.IP "plot(3, x1, y1, x2, y2)" 28
draws the line between
.RI ( x1 , y1 )
and
.RI ( x2 , y2 ).
.IP "plot(4, x, y, r)" 28
draws a circle with center
.RI ( x , y )
and radius
.IR r .
.IP "plot(5, x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3)" 28
draws an arc (counterclockwise)
with center
.RI ( x1 , y1 )
and endpoints
.RI ( x2 , y2 )
and
.RI ( x3 , y3 ).
.IP "plot(6)" 28
is not implemented.
.IP "plot(7, x, y)" 28
makes the current point
.RI ( x , y ).
.IP "plot(8, x, y)" 28
draws a line from the current point to
.RI ( x , y ).
.IP "plot(9, x, y)" 28
draws a point at
.RI ( x , y ).
.IP "plot(10, string)" 28
sets the line mode to
.IR string .
.IP "plot(11, x1, y1, x2, y2)" 28
makes
.RI ( x1 , y1 )
the lower left corner of the plotting area and
.RI ( x2 , y2 )
the upper right corner of the plotting area.
.IP "plot(12, x1, y1, x2, y2)" 28
causes subsequent x (y)
coordinates to be multiplied by
.I x1\^
.RI ( y1 )
and then added to
.I x2\^
.RI ( y2 )
before they are plotted.
The initial scaling is
.BR "plot(12, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0)" .
.RE
.IP "" 3
Some requests do not apply to all plotters.
All requests except zero and twelve
are implemented by piping characters to
.IR tplot (1G).
See
.IR plot (5)
for more details.
.HP 3
.B last(\|)
.br
in immediate mode,
.I last\^
returns the most recently computed value.
.SH "PROGRAMMING TIPS"
Using
.I bs\^
as a calculator:
.nf
.PP
.RS
$ bs
#    Distance (inches) light travels in a nanosecond.
186000 \(** 5280 \(** 12 / 1e9
\f311.78496\fP
\&.\|.\|.
.sp 1v
#    Compound interest (6% for 5 years on $1,000).
int = .06 / 4
bal = 1000
for i = 1 5\(**4  bal = bal + bal\(**int
bal \- 1000
\f3346.855007\fP
\&.\|.\|.
exit
.RE
.fi
.PP
The outline of a typical
.I bs\^
program:
.nf
.PP
.RS
# initialize things:
var1 = 1
open("read", "infile", "r")
\&.\|.\|.
# compute:
while  ?(str = read)
	\&.\|.\|.
next
# clean up:
close("read")
\&.\|.\|.
# last statement executed (exit or stop):
exit
# last input line:
run
.RE
.fi
.PP
.PP
Input/Output examples:
.nf
.PP
.RS
#    Copy "oldfile" to "newfile".
open("read", "oldfile", "r")
open("write", "newfile", "w")
\&.\|.\|.
while ?(write = read)
\&.\|.\|.
# close "read" and "write":
close("read")
close("write")
.sp 1v
#    Pipe between commands.
open("ls", "!ls \(**", "r")
open("pr", "!pr \-2 \-h \(fmList\(fm", "w")
while ?(pr = ls)  .\|.\|.
\&.\|.\|.
# be sure to close (wait for) these:
close("ls")
close("pr")
.RE
.fi
.SH SEE ALSO
ed(1), sh(1), tplot(1G), access(2), printf(3S), stdio(3S),
Section\ 3 of this volume for further description of the
mathematical functions
(pow(3M) is used for exponentiation),
plot(5).
.I Bs\^
uses the Standard Input/Output package.