Extended Pascal

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Extended Pascal is the name given to the version of Pascal specified in International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard 10206. It specifies an enhanced version of the Standard Pascal language that was specified in the ISO 7185 specification. The 214-page ISO 10206 document was published in May 1991 and not been revised since.

Support in Free Pascal for Extended Pascal is planned, and will be via compiler mode extendedPascal.

Enhancements to Standard Pascal

  • Modularity and separate compilation (implemented with new keywords module, import, export, only, qualified and protected).
  • Direct access file handing (via SeekRead, SeekWrite, SeekUpdate and update procedures, and the position, LastPosition and empty functions as well as an update file mode).
  • The procedure extend prepares an existing file for appending data
  • The declaration parts of a program (labels, constants, types, variables, procedures, and functions) can appear in any order
  • Complex numbers

Reserved Words

In addition to all the reserved words of Standard Pascal the following (referred to as word-symbols in the ISO 10206 document) have been added to Extended Pascal:

  • and_then (short circuit version of "and"; right side not evaluated if not necessary)
  • bindable
  • export
  • import
  • module
  • only
  • or_else (short circuit version of "or"; right side not evaluated if not necessary)
  • otherwise (used with the case statement and variant records)
  • pow (exponentiation for integer, real and complex numbers to real and integer powers)
  • protected
  • qualified
  • restricted
  • value

Symbols

In addition to all the symbols of Standard Pascal the following have been added to Extended Pascal:

  • ** (exponentiation for integer, real and complex numbers to real and integer powers)
  • >< (computes a set symmetric difference)
  • =>

Free Pascal support for Extended Pascal

Free Pascal has traditionally only supported the Borland dialects of Pascal, but Extended Pascal support will be available via compiler mode extendedpascal. Bug 0032549 has been set up to track its progress. Below is a list of things that have been implemented (if only in unapplied patches) and things that are planned. The planned features are subject to change.

Already supported features

These features are already supported in Free Pascal 3.0 and some earlier versions.

  • The declaration parts of a program (labels, constants, types, variables, procedures, and functions) can appear in any order
  • The ReadStr and WriteStr procedures.
  • The Halt procedure.
  • The otherwise clause of case statements.
  • The for ... in loop
  • Array and string slices (mostly working, though assigning to them doesn't).
  • The * and >< operators of sets.
  • The ** operator (requires the Math unit)
  • Various features from ISO 7185 not supported in the Borland dialects (requires ISO mode)

Conformant arrays (not yet implemented)

This is the standard way to pass arrays of various sizes to routines.

Set improvements (not yet implemented)

In addition to the * and >< operators, ISO 10206 also has a Card function, for retrieving the number of elements in a set. In Free Pascal, sets will still be limited to 256 elements for the foreseeable future (see Future Plans).

Generalized ordinal functions (not yet implemeted)

  • Succ and Pred can take a second argument, making them essentially equivalent to Borland's Inc and Dec.

Modules (not yet implemented)

Modules are the standard way for modular programs, covering the same domain as UCSD units. There are two types of modules: those written in a single file and those written in two files. For modules written in one file, Free Pascal will search for them as it does for units (modulename.{p,pp,pas}). Suggestion for those written in two files as this is not provided in the standard: the compiler will search for the implementation file normally and then search for modulename.imp.{p,pp,pas}. The interface is in modulename.int.{p,pp,pas}, unless otherwise specified by a {$INTERFACE} directive.

  • The import section specifies modules to import (much like UCSD's uses) and can be used with the keywords only (to only import certain identifiers (functions, procedures, types, variables, constants)), and qualified (qualified identifiers; that is, modulename.identifier, rather than just identifier). Identifiers can be renamed on import. An example:
program PathTest;

import
  SysUtils qualified only (GetEnvironmentVariable => GetEnv);

begin
  WriteLn(SysUtils.GetEnv('PATH'));
end.
  • Modules must export identifers for them to be usable to programs or other modules.
  • On export, identifers can also be renamed and the protected keyword can be specified so that other programs and modules can't change the variable's value.
  • In the module, the restricted keyword can be used to make opaque types. To use the example given in the standard:
type
  real_widget = record
    f1: integer;
    f2: real
  end;
  widget = restricted real_widget;
  • The to begin do statement specifies what happens when the module loads (equivalent to Delphi's initialization section).
  • The to end do statement specifies what happens when the module unloads (equivalent to Delphi's finalization section). The example in the standard uses to begin do to bind a text file on module load, writes to the text file during runtime, and then closes the text file in to end do.

Two extensions from GNU Pascal are also planned:

  • The all keyword to export all identifers from a module's interface (specified identifers can be renamed).
  • PXSC-style modules, which are essentially implementation modules without an interface part. (Free Pascal already supports PXSC-style operator overloading, as does GNU Pascal.)

Required interfaces

The modules StandardInput and StandardOutput are equivalent to input and output in a program's header.

Schemata (not yet implemented)

The standard defines a schema as a collection of similar types. Essentially, though, a schema is a data type that takes one or more arguments (called discriminants).

  • The ISO 10206 string type is a schema type.
  • The New procedure can be used to set a schema's discriminants at runtime.
  • The New procedure can also be used to set a variant record's discriminant.

File routines

  • The bindable keyword allows the binding of a variable to an external resource (not implemented, and it might stay that way; GNU Pascal also doesn't allow binding non-files)
  • Indexed files (not yet implemented)
  • The Bind procedure to bind a variable to an external resource
  • Unbind
  • Binding returns a BindingType record, whose Bound field tells if the file was successfully bound
  • Empty
  • Extend
  • SeekRead
  • SeekWrite
  • SeekUpdate
  • Update
  • Position
  • LastPosition (currently, it always returns 0, as its functioning requires support of indexed files)

Date/Time

The GetTimeStamp procedure fills a TimeStamp record with details about the current time, which can be converted to a human-readable format via the Date and Time functions.

String functions

  • Substr, equivalent to Copy.
  • Index, equivalent to Pos.
  • Trim.
  • String comparison through EQ, NE, LT, GT, LE, and GE (equal to, not equal to, less than, greater than, less than or equal to, greater than or equal to).

Complex Numbers

  • There's a complex data type. In Free Pascal, it's implemented as a record with two fields, but you shouldn't count on that. Instead use the Re and Im functions to get the real and imaginary parts, respectively.
  • Use Cmplx to create a complex number from Cartesian arguments or Polar to create one from polar arguments.
  • The standard operators and functions (abs, arctan, cos, exp, ln, sin, sqr, and sqrt) are overloaded to take complex arguments.
  • The function arg gets the complex number's argument.

Number bases (not yet implemented)

It's possible to use any number base from 2 to 36.

Exponents

The ** operator for real exponents has existed in Free Pascal for a while, but the pow operator for integer exponents remains unimplemented.

New constants

  • maxchar - The highest codepoint supported by a Pascal implementation.
  • minreal - The minimum real value supported.
  • maxreal - The maximum real value supported.
  • epsreal - The precision of reals.

Ensuring the proper order of Boolean expressions (not yet implemented)

ISO 10206 introduces the and_then and or_else operators when you need your expression to evaluated left to right. The and and or operators, on the other hand, can evaluate the Boolean expressions in any order. These new operators are especially useful for pointer operations, where you need to know whether a pointer is assigned before trying to dereference it.

The value keyword (not yet implemented)

The value keyword specifies the default value for a variable, type, parameter, or record field.

  • For variables and default parameters, this is equivalent to the Delphi operator =.
  • For record fields and types, there's no direct equivalent in the Borland dialects, but the initialize “management operator” could perform the same task.

Note: Default parameters aren't defined in ISO 10206, but are in Appendix C.4 of the OOE draft.

Function result variables (not yet implemented)

Allows to bind a function's result to a variable, sort of like Delphi's Result.

Protected parameters (not yet implemented)

The protected keyword can also be used with parameters to indicated that they can't be changed in the routine, giving the compiler hints to aid optimization. To use the example given in the standard: 

procedure illustrate(a: integer; var b: integer; protected c: integer; protected var d: integer);
begin
  a := 1; { value param }
  b := 1; { variable param }
{ c := 1; not legal }
{ d := 1; not legal }
end;

Type inquiry (not yet implemented)

Allows you to make the type of one variable or parameter the same as another variable or parameter.

Value constructors (not yet implemented)

This provides a cleaner alternative to Borland's typed constants (which aren't really constants at all) and gives a shortcut to constructing arrays and records at runtime.

Local variables with dynamic size (not yet implemented)

This should work but doesn't currently: 

procedure p(n: integer);
var
  v: 1..n;
begin
  ...
end;

Acceptable Identifiers (not yet implemented)

  • An underscore (_) may neither begin or end an identifier.
  • Two underscores may not appear in succession, thus Foo__bar (two underscores) is illegal.
  • Merely all-numeric labels are allowed and have a maximum length of four digits.

External links

Retrieved from "https://wiki.freepascal.org/index.php?title=Extended_Pascal&oldid=160185"