[Info-vax] Programming languages on VMS

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2018-01-24 18:26, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> Given what it was designed for BASIC was never taken seriously.  Even
> after ANSIfication it was still not overly practical as most versions
> were interpreted and not compiled. What data type of none-integer does
> BASIC support that can do calculations with decimals without the
> cumulative error common to floating point?

Is that a trick question?
BASIC can actually do arithmetic on strings, with arbitrary precision.
And that's been in several different BASIC dialects I've played with.

 From the BP2 help:

   FUNCTIONS

     BUILT-IN

       SUM$

  The SUM$ function returns a string whose value is the sum of two  numeric
  strings.

  Format

      str-vbl = SUM$(str-exp1, str-exp2)

  Example

  600    Sigma$ = SUM$("234.444", A$)


You also have DIF$, PROD$ and QUO$.

   Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
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