A Guide to the S-Lang Language

John E. Davis, davis@space.mit.edu

1. Preface

• 1.1 A Brief History of S-Lang
• 1.2 Acknowledgements

2. Introduction

• 2.1 Language Features
• 2.2 Data Types and Operators
• 2.3 Statements and Functions
• 2.4 Error Handling
• 2.5 Run-Time Library
• 2.6 Input/Output
• 2.7 Obtaining S-Lang

3. Overview of the Language

• 3.1 Variables and Functions
• 3.2 Strings
• 3.3 Referencing and Dereferencing
• 3.4 Arrays
• 3.5 Structures and User-Defined Types

4. Data Types and Literal Constants

• 4.1 Predefined Data Types
• 4.2 Typecasting: Converting from one Type to Another

5. Identifiers

6. Variables

7. Operators

• 7.1 Unary Operators
• 7.2 Binary Operators
• 7.3 Mixing Integer and Floating Point Arithmetic.
• 7.4 Short Circuit Boolean Evaluation

8. Statements

• 8.1 Variable Declaration Statements
• 8.2 Assignment Statements
• 8.3 Conditional and Looping Statements
• 8.4 break, return, continue

9. Functions

• 9.1 Declaring Functions
• 9.2 Parameter Passing Mechanism
• 9.3 Referencing Variables
• 9.4 Functions with a Variable Number of Arguments
• 9.5 Returning Values
• 9.6 Multiple Assignment Statement
• 9.7 Exit-Blocks

10. Arrays

• 10.1 Creating Arrays
• 10.2 Reshaping Arrays
• 10.3 Indexing Arrays
• 10.4 Arrays and Variables
• 10.5 Using Arrays in Computations

11. Structures and User-Defined Types

• 11.1 Defining a Structure
• 11.2 Accessing the Fields of a Structure
• 11.3 Linked Lists
• 11.4 Defining New Types

12. Error Handling

• 12.1 Error-Blocks
• 12.2 Clearing Errors

13. Loading Files: evalfile and autoload

14. Input/Output

15. Debugging

16. Future Directions

Appendix

17. Copyright

• 17.1 The GNU Public License
• 17.2 The Artistic License