Basalt 1.50 beta released

[Steve Drain]

I am pleased to announce the release of Basalt version 1.50 beta.

Basalt is BASIC Alternative keywords, a module that adds many extra
features to all versions of BBC BASIC V.

This version supports long strings, which I refer to as 'strands'. [1]

A strand is a normal BASIC string that holds a reference to a long
string. A strand variable is assigned with LET and can be released with
DELETE. Strands can be concatenated with other strands and normal
strings (literals, variables and functions) to make strand expressions.

Strands (variables and expressions) only have meaning if keywords
recognise them and this is done by enclosing strand parameters in
parentheses, (). It is never otherwise necessary to enclose a parameter
in parentheses, although it has always been optional. I would welcome
comments on this choice of syntax.

There are alternative versions of nearly all the necessary BASIC
keywords to work with strands, but the normal operation of BASIC is not
changed. The string functions return a strand value if they have a
strand parameter:

PRINT STRING$ SUM$(SUM) LEFT$ MID$ RIGHT$ INSTR LEN SUMLEN
ASC BPUT BGET$(GET$)

All Basalt string keywords also work with strands:

SWAP$ MOD$ SEARCH$ MATCH$ REPLACE$ COUNT FIELDS FIELDS$ ARG$
SAVE LOAD$ PTR PTY TWIN RETURN$

The Basalt module can be downloaded from:

http://www.kappa.me.uk/Modules/swBasalt150.zip

The comprehensive StrongHelp manual can be downloaded separately from:

http://www.kappa.me.uk/StrongHelp/shBasalt150.zip

The online HTML version of this manual is not yet available.

[1] These strands bear no relation to my earlier attempts to implement
long strings using an 'entity'; entities are no longer used in Basalt.


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