There are a few commands in ROBOT which enable
simple ``programs'' to be constructed. Warning: these
are all prototype and their formats and functionality may
change. They're also presently a little limited.
VARIABLE - define a name to be used as a ``variable''. Variable
names are not case sensitive. All variables are floating
point. Argument: variable name.
ASSIGN - assigns a value to one of several user accessible variables.
Arguments: (i) variable name, (ii) value. The default variable names available
are A1, A2, A3, A4 and A5 together with any assigned using the VARIABLE
command.
These are ``global'' in the sense
that instructions inside a FILE know all variable values.
LOOP - enables a simple FORTRAN-like do loop. Argument: start value
for loop, end value for loop and increment value for each iteration of
the loop. This is presently rather limited - you can't nest loops
and only approximately 100 commands may be contained inside each loop.
When you are inside a loop the variable ``LOOP'' which is the value of
the loop parameter may be used in arguments for other commands.
IF - the argument is evaluated and the following commands
are executed if the argument is positive.
ELSEIF - argument is evaluated and following commands executed
if argument is positive.
ELSE - following commands are executed if preceding IF or
ELSEIF had a negative argument.
ENDIF - terminates an IF block. This must be used.
IF statements can be nested. The FILE command may be used to create simple subroutine type structures - albeit with no arguments or returned values apart from those set using ASSIGN. The degree to which FILE commands may be contained inside a file called by a FILE command depends on the number of open files allowed by your operating system.