View source for Recital 4GL Basics

==Commands==
Recital 4GL commands can be entered in a free-form fashion.  Spaces and indents can be added where required to make the code more readable.  Commands can be entered in upper, lower or mixed case and in almost all instances, only the first four letters of a command need be entered, e.g.

<code lang="recital">
MODIFY STRUCTURE
MODI STRU
SET EXCLUSIVE ON
SET EXCL ON
</code>


==Comments==
Comments are ignored by the compiler but are, of course, very useful to the developer and even more so to anyone who has to maintain or alter the code later in its lifetime.


{| class="wikitable"
!Symbol||Position||Effect
|-
|[[*]]||Start of line||Line is ignored
|-
|[[NOTE]]||Start of line||Line is ignored
|-
|[[//]]||Anywhere in line||All text that follows is ignored
|-
|[[&&]]||Anywhere in line||All text that follows is ignored
|-
|[[Comment Block|/* */]]||
|}


==Line Continuation==
The semi-colon ";" placed at the end of a line can be used to continue a command onto the next line.  Commands can be up to 8192 characters long.

<code lang="recital">
use customer;
in 1;
order customer
</code>

Is the equivalent of:

<code lang="recital">
use customer in 1 order customer
</code>


==Multiple Commands==
By contrast, a semi-colon within a line signifies the end of a command and that the text that follows is a new command.

<code lang="recital">
select 1; use customer; set order tag customer
</code>

Is the equivalent of:

<code lang="recital">
select 1
use customer
set order tag customer
</code>

[[Category:Documentation]]
[[Category:Reference]]