Edit on GitHub

6 Commands and Declarations

A command is an order to the system to do something. Some commands cause visible results (such as calling for input or output); others, usually called declarations, set options, define properties of variables, or define procedures. Commands are formally defined as a statement followed by a terminator

⟨command⟩ 	::= ⟨statement⟩⟨terminator⟩
⟨terminator⟩ 	::= ;∣$

Some REDUCE commands and declarations are described in the following sub-sections.

6.1 Array Declarations

Not initially supported by Reduce.jl parser, see upstream docs for more information.

6.2 Mode Handling Declarations

The on and off declarations are available to the user for controlling various system options. Each option is represented by a switch name. on and off take a list of switch names as argument and turn them on and off respectively, e.g.,

julia> on(:time)

causes the system to print a message after each command giving the elapsed CPU time since the last command, or since time was last turned off, or the session began. Another useful switch with interactive use is demo, which causes the system to pause after each command in a file (with the exception of comments) until a <Return> is typed on the terminal. This enables a user to set up a demonstration file and step through it command by command.

As with most declarations, arguments to on and off may be strung together separated by commas. For example,

julia> off(:time,:demo)

will turn off both the time messages and the demonstration switch.

We note here that while most on and off commands are obeyed almost instantaneously, some trigger time-consuming actions such as reading in necessary modules from secondary storage.

A diagnostic message is printed if on or off are used with a switch that is not known to the system. For example, if you misspell demo and type

julia> on(:demq)

you will get the message

ERROR: Reduce: 
***** demq not defined as switch

6.3 END

The identifier end has two separate uses.

  1. Its use in a R"begin… end" bracket has been discussed in connection with compound statements.
  2. Files to be read using IN should end with an extra end; command. The reason for this is explained in the section on the IN command. This use of END does not allow an immediately preceding end (such as the end of a procedure definition), so we advise using ;end; there.

6.4 BYE Command

The command R"bye" (or alternatively R"quit") stops the execution of REDUCE, closes all open output files, and returns you to the calling program (usually the operating system). Your REDUCE session is normally destroyed.

6.5 SHOWTIME Command

R"showtime" prints the elapsed time since the last call of this command or, on its first call, since the current REDUCE session began. The time is normally given in milliseconds and gives the time as measured by a system clock. The operations covered by this measure are system dependent.

6.6 DEFINE Command

Reduce.Algebra.define — Function
define(r...)

The command define allows a user to supply a new name for any identifier or replace it by any well-formed expression. Its argument is a list of expressions of the form

⟨identifier⟩ = 	⟨number⟩∣⟨identifier⟩∣⟨operator⟩∣
		⟨reserved word⟩∣⟨expression⟩

Example:

Algebra.define(:(x==y+z))
source

Example:

        define be==,x=y+z;

means that be will be interpreted as an equal sign, and x as the expression y+z from then on. This renaming is done at parse time, and therefore takes precedence over any other replacement declared for the same identifier. It stays in effect until the end of the REDUCE run.

The identifiers ALGEBRAIC and SYMBOLIC have properties which prevent define from being used on them. To define ALG to be a synonym for ALGEBRAIC, use the more complicated construction

        put(’alg,’newnam,’algebraic);