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A-Shell Reference

Written January 2023

ASB variable names must start with an alphabetic character, followed by zero or more alphanumeric characters plus underlines and apostrophes, up to a maximum of 260 characters. Unlike language keywords, variable names are case sensitive, unless the /CI compiler switch is used. Typically they are declared explicitly—via MAP or DIMX statements—but optionally may be implicitly or auto-created by the compiler. The fundamental data types—integer, floating point, string and raw—are supported in various sizes, including dynamic, and may be packaged as individual scalars, compound structures, arrays (fixed or dynamically dimensioned), or collections (ordered maps and lists).

See the following subtopics for more details.

Subtopics

MAP Statements

Data Types

Dynamically Sized Variables

Arrays

Collections

Implicit Variable Declarations

System Variables

Dot Variables