Topic group Related topics

There is normally one statement per line in a program file. Use the semicolon to either:

Combine multiple statements on a single line, or

Create a multi-line statement

For example, a DO...UNTIL loop usually takes more than two lines: one for the DO, one for the UNTIL condition, and one or more lines in the loop body. But suppose all you want to do is loop until the condition is true; you can combine them using the semicolon as the statement separator:

do ; until rlock( ) // Wait for record lock

Long statements are easier to read if you break them up into multiple lines. Use the semicolon as the last non-comment character on the line to indicate that the statement continues on the next line. When the program is compiled, the comments are stripped; then any line that ends with a semicolon is tacked onto the beginning of the next line. For example, the program:

? "abc" + ; // A comment

"def" + ; 

ghi 

is compiled as

? "abc" + "def" + ghi

on line 3 of the program file. Note that the spaces before the semicolons and the spaces used to indent the code are not stripped. If an error occurs because there is no variable named ghi, the error will be reported on line 3.