home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Working In L.O.V.E. Forth
-
- Here are some notes on how to do day to day work in L.O.V.E.
- Forth. A good starting point for viewing the features, is given in the
- share-ware demo LOVES.EXE .
-
- Help
-
- For help while using the system, load the Hyper Helper with the
- DOS command: HM LOVE before running Forth. Or execute GO.BAT or
- BARE.BAT . The help system is subsequently invoked the the key
- sequence: ALT-F1 .
-
- Directories
-
- Usually, the programmer copies Forth to the working directory
- including source code etc. When copying the EXE to another directory,
- be sure to also copy the *.VTR files. These are the virtual
- vocabularies. Alternatively the DOS APPEND command can be used to direct
- DOS to the appropriate directory.
-
- Versions of L.O.V.E. Forth
-
- The minimum system, with the smallest number of features
- compiled is called MINnnn.EXE where nnn is the version number (eg.
- MIN126.EXE ). This is the program executed by BARE.BAT . On top of
- this can be the block disk words (LOADBLK.TXT) and / or the RPN
- assembler. Be sure to save the system again with SAVE" after loading
- the desired features (eg. SAVE" LOVERPN.EXE" ).
-
- Various source code modules can be loaded ontop of the BARE
- system. These include local variables, multiple CFA words,
- miscellaneous words. Dependancies:
-
- LOADBLK.TXT also loads MISC.TXT
- ARRAY.TXT requires MCFA.TXT
-
- All others can be loaded independantly.
-
- Upper and Lower Case
-
- Normally, the case of a word is ignored. By setting variable
- CASEMATCH to true, however, will cause L.O.V.E. Forth to match the case
- of the word as it originally was compiled. All the L.O.V.E. Forth
- standard words were compiled in upper case. Compilation is slightly
- faster in case match mode, but it is usually desireable to type
- interactive commands with case ignored.
-
- Text strings
-
- Frequently the programmer requires control characters in
- strings. This is difficult to do in any text file, as control
- characters may be editor commands, or printer control codes. L.O.V.E.
- Forth supports AWK style escape commands. These are summarized as
- follows:
- \b : backspace
- \f : formfeed
- \n : newline, linefeed
- \r : carriage return
- \t : tab
- \ddd : decimal value, 1 to 3 digits
- \c : where 'c' is any other character literally
- \\ : for backslash
- \" : for "
-
- These can be used in text strings compiled with the words:
- ." " ," .(
-
- Vocabularies
-
- See also the section describing vocabularies. The usual
- vocabulary for working in Forth is FORTH. The words controlling the
- dictionary search order are in vocabulary ROOT . The word DEVELOP
- sets the search order to be ROOT FORTH and TOOLBOX which contains
- programming aids. The vocabulary implementation is that of a stack,
- ALSO pushes the stack and VDROP drops the top of the stack. ONLY
- resets it to ROOT only.
-
- Access to DOS
-
- Typing the word DOS followed by a DOS command line, executes
- that in a DOS shell. Typing DOS followed by nothing, enters the DOS
- shell (typing EXIT returns to Forth). This is one way to invoke a text
- editor. Note that there must be enough memory to invoke DOS. If too
- much memory is allocated in MAXHEAP (see instructions on saving the
- system), DOS cannot be entered.
-
- Windows 3.0
-
- The multitasking features of this environment are useful. One
- can run L.O.V.E. Forth from a DOS prompt, and have an editor running in
- another window. The L.O.V.E. Forth icon is provided.