Recital Operators

Recital Operators

Assignment Operators

Values are assigned to memory variables using the the equals = operator or the inline assignment := operator.

cVAR1 = 'newer value'
cVAR1 := 'newest value'

Note that the store command can also be used to assign valuesand can operate on more than one memory variable in a single command.

store 'new value' to cVAR1, cVAR2

Arithmetic Operators

Recital supports the use of the following Arithmetic Operators:

Operator	Operation	Precedence
()	Parentheses	1
**	Exponentiation	2
*	Multiplication	3
/	Division	3
%	Modulus/Remainder	3
+	Addition	4
-	Subtraction	4

When dealing with Date data types, the operators work as follows:

Operator	Operation
+	<expD> + <expN> returns a date plus the number of days specified in <expN>.
-	Returns the interval between the two dates as a number of days.

Example

? 2*3^2
        18
? 2*25%7
      1.00
? date() + 30 - date()
        30

Comparison Operators

The following Comparison Operators are supported in Recital:

Operator	Operation
=	Equal To
==	Exactly Equal To / Matches Pattern
<>	Not Equal To
!=	Not Equal To
#	Not Equal To
>	Greater Than
>=	Greater Than or Equal To
<	Less Than
<=	Less Than or Equal To

The Comparison Operators are always evaluated from left to right.

Increment and Decrement Operators

The ++ operator is used to automatically increment a previously declared numeric memory variable by one. The ++ operator must be placed at the beginning of the command line.

Example

i=0
do while i <100
    ++ i
enddo

The -- operator is used to automatically decrement a previously declared numeric memory variable by one. The -- operator must be placed at the beginning of the command line.

Example

i=100
do while i > 0
    --i
enddo

String Concatenation Operator

When dealing with string data types, the + and - operators perform the following concatenation operations:

Operator	Operation
+	Concatenate the right hand string to the end of the left hand string.
-	Concatenate the right hand string to the end of the left hand string after trimming the left hand string of trailing spaces.

Example

? [Hello] + [ ] + [ World]
Hello World
? [Hello     ] - [ World]
Hello World

String Search Operators

The following String Search Operators are supported in Recital:

Operator	Operation
$	Substring is Contained In
|	Contains Substring

Concatenation of Strings and Other Data Types

If SET STRICT is OFF, non-string expressions are automatically converted as they are added to a string. If SET STRICT is ON, expressions must be converted manually using the ETOS() or other |data conversion functions. By default, STRICT is ON.

Example

set strict off
echo "This string can add numerics and dates etc. " + 100.89 + " " + date()
 
set strict on
echo "This string can add numerics and dates etc. " + str(100.89,6,2) + " " + etos(date())