ObjectScript Quick Introduction
Here's the world's quickest introduction to ObjectScript commands, operators, and functions.
Commands
| Set | Assign a value to a variable, e.g. SET A = 1 |
| Do | Execute a method or subroutine, e.g. DO X(43) |
| If ... ElseIf ... Else | Conditional execution (THEN is implicit). |
| For | Loop using a counter, e.g. FOR X = 1 : 1 : 100 In FOR X = A : B : C, A is the starting value, B the increment, and C the ending value. |
| While & Do ... While | Loop until a condition is true, e.g.WHILE A < 10 { SET B = B + 1 }. |
| Quit | Exit from a method, subroutine or FOR loop |
Operators
| + - * / | The usual arithmetic operators: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. |
| ** | Exponentiation. |
| \ | Integer Division. |
| # | Modulo. |
| = < > | Logical Comparisons. |
| ' | Logical NOT (a single quote). |
| && || | Logical AND and OR. |
| _ | String concatenation (an underscore). |
| ? | Pattern match. Very powerful, but too rich to explain here. |
Functions
| $Case | Compare an expression with a set of cases and return the value associated with the first matching case. For instance, $CASE(X, 6:"Weekend",7:"Weekend",:"Weekday"), returns “Weekend” if X equals 6 or 7 and “Weekday” otherwise. |
| $Extract | Return a portion of a string. |
| $Find | Find characters within a string. |
| $FNumber | Format a number, e.g. $FNUMBER(X, ",", 2) uses commas as the thousands separators and displays two decimal places. |
| $Get | Fetch the value of a variable or return a default value if the variable is undefined, e.g. SET A = $GET(X, 3) —If X is undefined, A = 3, otherwise A = X. |
| $Horolog | Get the current date and time. |
| $Length | Determine the length of a string. |
| $List | One of a set of functions for manipulating lists. |
| $Piece | Extact substrings from a string using a delimiter character. |
| $Translate | Perform character translations. |
| $Zdate | Formats a date value. |
| $Ztime | Formats a time value. |
To learn more about ObjectScript, consult the ObjectScript Language Reference.
