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By R. S. Doiel, 2020-04-19
This is the four post in the Mostly Oberon[1] series. Mostly Oberon documents my exploration of the Oberon Language, Oberon System and the various rabbit holes I will inevitably fall into.
Oberon is a small systems language and while it is minimalist. It provides you with the necessary primitives to get things done. I've touched on code organization, basic types and basic type extensions in the previous articles. I have shown the basic control statements but have not talked about them yet.
Oberon offers four basic control statements.
IF, ELSIF, ELSE : Basic condition test and execution
ASSERT : A mechanism to trigger a program halt
WHILE DO, ELSIF DO : The Loop structure in the language (aside from recursive procedures)
FOR TO, FOR TO BY : A counting Loop where incrementing a counter by an integer value (e.g. 1 or by a specified constant).
The first two provide for conditional statements of the form if a condition is true do something. Almost ever computer language has some form of a conditional express and the Oberon IF, ELSIF, ELSE typical of what you find is more computer languages today. Both ELSIF and ELSE are optional.
IF (s = "Freda") OR (s = "Mojo") THEN
Out.String("Wowie Zowie! I remember you from ZBS stories.");Out.Ln;
ELSIF (s = "Bilbo") OR (s = "Gandolf") THEN
Out.String("Greets, I remember from the Hobbit.");Out.Ln;
ELSE
Out.String("Glad to meet you ");Out.String(s);Out.Ln;
END;
The second expression, ASSERT, is a little different. If ASSERT evaluates an expression that is FALSE then your program is halted. This is like combining an "if EXPR is false then system exit".
Out.String("Should I continue? Y/n ");
In.Line(s);
Out.Ln;
ASSERT((s = "Y") OR (s = "y"));
(* If you didn't enter Y or y the program will halt *)
Oberon-07 also provides two loop structures. These are very similar to other languages as well. The only expectation is that a while loop may contain an ELSIF which continues the loop execution until both clauses return FALSE.
The basic while loop, counting 1 to 10.
i := 0;
WHILE i < 10 DO
i := i + 1;
Out.Int(i, 1);Out.String(" ");
END;
A while, elsif loop, counting 1 to 10, then 10 to 100 by 10.
i := 0;
WHILE i < 10 DO
i := i + 1;
Out.Int(i, 1); Out.String(" ");
ELSIF i < 100 DO
i := i + 10;
Out.Int(i, 1);Out.String(" ");
END;
The FOR loop in Oberon is very similar to modern FOR loops. The FOR loop increments an integer value with in a range. You the default increments the start value by 1 but if a BY clause is included you can control how the increment value works.
Regular for loop, i is incremented by 1.
FOR i := 1 TO 10 DO
Out.Int(i, 1);Out.String(" ");
END;
Using a BY clause incrementing i by 2.
FOR i := 0 TO 20 BY 2 DO
Out.Int(i, 1);Out.String(" ");
END;
The following module[2] demonstrates the conditional and loop syntax.
MODULE LoopsAndConditions;
IMPORT In, Out;
PROCEDURE IfElsifElseDemo;
VAR s : ARRAY 128 OF CHAR;
BEGIN
Out.String("Enter your name: ");
In.Line(s);
Out.Ln;
IF (s = "Freda") OR (s = "Mojo") THEN
Out.String("Wowie Zowie! I remember you from ZBS stories.");Out.Ln;
ELSIF (s = "Bilbo") OR (s = "Gandolf") THEN
Out.String("Greets, I remember from the Hobbit.");Out.Ln;
ELSE
Out.String("Glad to meet you ");Out.String(s);Out.Ln;
END;
END IfElsifElseDemo;
PROCEDURE AssertDemo;
VAR s : ARRAY 128 OF CHAR;
BEGIN
Out.String("Should I continue? Y/n ");
In.Line(s);
Out.Ln;
ASSERT((s = "Y") OR (s = "y"));
END AssertDemo;
PROCEDURE WhileDemo;
VAR i : INTEGER;
BEGIN
Out.String("Basic WHILE counting from 1 to 10");Out.Ln;
i := 0;
WHILE i < 10 DO
i := i + 1;
Out.Int(i, 1);Out.String(" ");
END;
Out.Ln;
Out.String("WHILE ELSIF, count 1 to 10 THEN 10 to 100");Out.Ln;
i := 0;
WHILE i < 10 DO
i := i + 1;
Out.Int(i, 1); Out.String(" ");
ELSIF i < 100 DO
i := i + 10;
Out.Int(i, 1);Out.String(" ");
END;
Out.Ln;
Out.String("Demo of while loop counting one to ten, then by tenths.");
END WhileDemo;
PROCEDURE ForDemo;
VAR i : INTEGER;
BEGIN
Out.String("Basic FOR LOOP counting from 1 to 10");Out.Ln;
FOR i := 1 TO 10 DO
Out.Int(i, 1);Out.String(" ");
END;
Out.Ln;
Out.String("FOR loop counting by twos 1 to 20");Out.Ln;
FOR i := 0 TO 20 BY 2 DO
Out.Int(i, 1);Out.String(" ");
END;
Out.Ln;
END ForDemo;
BEGIN
IfElsifElseDemo;
AssertDemo;
WhileDemo;
ForDemo;
END LoopsAndConditions.