Syntax

Details of Interface File parsing are given in Appendix , but the following points should be sufficient for now.

• The file is interpreted as a sequence of tokens, usually separated by comma, space or newline.
• Tokens may be:
  • reserved words
  • constants (number, character, logical or !)
  • names (i.e. everything else).
• A character constant is a string of characters enclosed in single quotes. Where a token may be a character constant, a name (i.e. a single-token, unquoted string) or even a reserved word is usually also allowed. The term character string is used in this document where this situation pertains. An exception to this is where the token represents a parameter value (a default value, for example) - then character constants must be enclosed in quotes so that names can be distinguished from strings.
• Case is generally not significant.
• Extra white space is ignored (apart from within quoted strings) and it is recommended that blank lines and indentation are used for clarity.
• Comments may be introduced by # (apart from within quoted strings).
• STARLSE (see SUN/105) contains VAX Language Sensitive Editor templates for Interface Files.