Main sections
01 General
Hi and welcome to GLBasic, your new programming language.
Here you will learn how to convert your ideas into real programs. A little word of warning: GLBasic cannot do wonders, it has its strengths and weaknesses. A good programmer excels by utilising the strengths of a language and working around its weaknesses. Having said that, there are many areas where GLBasic excels - sprites for example. You will find sprite rotations, alpha blending and zooming, while difficult in some languages, are simple to implement in GLBasic. To reach a stable frame rate, GLBasic can easily be slowed down to a certain number of frames per second to match any target platform.
Chapter 1: The Basics.
A program is made up of very simple commands that individually do almost nothing. Combining these simple commands to make them do something powerful is the difficult thing about programming.
Programs can only:
-Declare variables (named containers for data)
-Make jumps to other parts of the program
-Manipulate the data held in variables
-Transfer variables to functions
A compiler takes these commands and converts them into a language the computer can understand.
1.1 General:
GLBasic is a variant of the BASIC programming language and a very easy one at that. It has its own syntax and if you don't keep within this syntax 100% of the time, the GLBasic compiler will display an error asking you to correct your syntax before it will compile your code.
GLBasic finishes every command with a ';' (semicolon) or a new line.
All commands in GLBasic must be written in capital letters. The editor will automatically convert the GLBasic commands you type to upper-case even if you do not. If it fails to convert a command, check that you have spelled it correctly.
Every character to the right of a '//' on a line, or to the right of the command 'REM' will be seen as a comment within the code. Comments will be ignored when the compiler converts your code into a program. This is handy for adding notes within your source.
GLBasic uses hidden surfaces (Double Buffering) for graphical display. If you code something in GLBasic you will see nothing before your program calls the 'SHOWSCREEN' command. 'SHOWSCREEN' takes the current back buffer, makes it visible, then creates a new back buffer with a predefined image or a cleared image.
If you don't see any result from your program, the first thing to check is whether you have forgotten to add the 'SHOWSCREEN' command to it.
Think of Double Buffering as two sheets of paper, one on top of the other where you draw on the bottom sheet. Once you're finished drawing, you swap the sheets and in the process erase the new bottom sheet. This hides the actual drawing of the sheet from the user and in the process eliminates screen flicker.
1.2 Our First Program:
Start the editor and select "Create a new project" in the wizard. Type "Hello World" within the "Name of Project" box, press OK and type the following program into the editor's window.
//////////////
// HELLO WORLD
//////////////
// My First Program
PRINT "HELLO WORLD!" ,100,100
SHOWSCREEN
MOUSEWAIT
END
Save all your work with the Double-disk toolbar button or use the menu option "File/Save all". Compile the program using the Sand-bucket toolbar button or the menu option "Compiler/Build". Finally, start the program with either the Joypad toolbar button or the menu option "Compiler/Run".
You should see a black screen with "HELLO WORLD" printed on it. After clicking your mouse button the program will exit. You have now made your first step into the great new world of programming!
Enough of the simple stuff, let's get started with 'variables'!
Declaring variables.
There are 3 'Types' of variables in GLBasic - Numbers, Integers and Strings. You can think of Variables as desk-drawers. On the front of the drawer there's the name of the variable and within the drawer you'll find the value of the variable.
Let's start with numbers and see how it works.
1.3 Numeric Variable Types
LET a=5
We use the command 'LET' to tell the compiler we'd like to have the variable 'a' store the value 5 within it.
To make variable declarations somewhat faster to type, the 'LET' command can be left out. The resulting line would look like this:
a=5
LET a=5
LET a=a+1
a=5
a=a+1
There are other operations that can be done with numbers. GLBasic knows the following symbols as part of calculations:
'+' = Addition, '-' = Subtraction, '*' = Multiplication and '/' = Division.
ATTENTION:
LET a= 3+4*5;
(brackets first) * / + - AND OR < > =
There are some special mathematical functions in GLBasic that work differently to the rest:
'SIN()', 'COS()', 'TAN()'
These functions return a value. So, for example, 'a=COS(10)', will put the mathematical result of Cosine 10 into the variable 'a'.
Another example of a numeric function is the 'RND()' command. 'RND()' returns a random number in the range 0 to argument. For example:
LET a=RND(50) // a= random number from 0 to 50
When you create a variable for the first time (e.g. using LOCAL/GLOBAL command, or at the time of first use) you can append a '%' character to its name to indicate that this variable is an integer number. (An integer is a number without a fraction part). Appending an optional '#' will make the variable a floating point number (one with a fractional part). The appendices ('%' or '#') are optional for further use of the variable.
<B>*Note*</B>
GLBasic uses floating point numbers by default. Thus, if you wish to perform integer only calculations, make sure you use the function INTEGER().
1.4 String Variable Types:
String variables are specified differently to numeric variables by having a '$' at the end of their name.
*Note*, Numeric variable can swap their values with String variables and vice-versa, this process is known as a "type conversion" (ie. converting a variable from one type - float, integer, string - to one of the others). All type conversions are handled automatically. More on this later.
String Variable Sample.
LET a$="HELLO"
We know that strings names end with '$', but how do you define the text that is to be stored within the String variable? To allocate a string of text to a variable you surround the text with quotes (" "). a$="HELLO" for example will store the text "HELLO" within the variable 'a$'.
The command LET allows you to do some useful things with strings.
LET a$="My"
LET b$="favourite number:"
LET c= 7
// Now look!!
LET d$=a$ + " " + b$ + " : " + c
PRINT d$,0,20
SHOWSCREEN
My favourite number: 7
The 'LET' command, as always, can be left out if you like. You can see from this example that numbers can be converted to strings ('d$=c'), and strings can be joined together ('a$=a$+b$').
Why is this useful? Assume within a program you want to load an image from a file where the image's filename is "image5.dat". The following is an example of how the automatic type conversion can make programming easier for the coder.
LET imagenumber=5 // This happens somewhere in the program...
LET image$="image" + imagenumber + ".dat"
Yes, you could just write "LET image$="image5.dat"" in this basic example, but as you learn GLBasic you will see where this sort of thing can come in really handy.
Attention: c and c$ are two different variables. When using numbers (c% = integer and c#=floating point) the % and # can be left away after the initialization. The variable only is named "c", the "%" or "#" is just an additional information for the compiler.
GLBasic offers some special functions for handling Strings.
INPUT name$, x, y
dest$=MID$(source$, start, length)
Sample:
name$="My house is blue"
m$=MID$(name$, 3, 5)
PRINT m$ , 20, 20
SHOWSCREEN
Output:
house
Say you had a person typing their name in for a high score list but only wanted the first 7 letters. To achieve this you can trim the names by simply copying just the first 7 letters of the original string into a substring.
INPUT enter$, 100, 100
name$ = MID$(enter$, 0, 7)
PRINT name$, 100, 100; SHOWSCREEN; MOUSEWAIT
fmt$=FORMAT$(numLetters, numAfterComma, number)
This command can convert numbers to strings more efficiently. Keep this in mind as you might need it sometime. See the reference for more details.
1.5 Data Arrays Types:
Now you have an overview of variables, but how would you store and manipulate large blocks of numbers or text? How would you store 1000 names in your program for example? 1000 separate variables? You could do this but it is not a practical solution - for this you would use something called an "array".
An array can be imagined as a checkerboard. At each location on the checkerboard is a value. To create an array in GLBasic that is 8 fields in its x-dimension and 8 fields in its y-dimension, you would define it like this:
DIM checker[8][8]
The computer will allocate memory ('DIM') to store an 8x8 array, set each field to 0 and allow you to reference it via the name 'checker'.
If we want the field in location 3 across, 4 down to have a value of 7, we would write this:
LET checker[2][3]=7
Why "[2][3]" and not "[3][4]"? The array is indexed starting at 0 rather than one - ie. the fields are numbered from 0 to 7 across and 0 to 7 down. 0,0 = top left of array, 7,7 = bottom right of array - just like map references. This is somewhat confusing at the beginning, but you'll get used to it very soon.
You can also reference an array's field via variables:
DIM checker[8][8]
LET checker[2][3]=7
LET x=2
LET y=3
LET a=checker[x][y]
PRINT "Checkerboard[2][3] has the value:", 100, 80
PRINT a, 100, 100
Checkerboard[2][3] has the value:
7
*Note*, Arrays may not have more than 4 dimensions.
DIM a[1][2][3][4]; // just OK
Samples:
DIM space$[10][10][10] // A space with x, y and z (10 checkerboards each)
// each 10 fields (0-9)
LET space$[5][7][3]="Green"
DIM name$[5] // 5 strings
LET name$[0]="Peggy"
LET name$[1]="Tim"
DIM cinemavisitor$[30][10]
LET cinemavisitor$[seat][row]=" Tom"
With the command REDIM you can change the dimensions of existing arrays but keep the data held within. If you resize the array smaller than it was originally, the data outside the new array is lost.
DIM name$[5] // 5 strings
LET name$[0]="Peggy"
LET name$[4]="Tim"
REDIM name$[2] // 2 Words
The value at position 4 ("Tim") would be lost when the REDIM command is executed.
If you want to copy an array :
DIM a[5]
b[] = a[]
This creates a new array b[5] and copies the data from a[] to it.
You can also remove rows from an array with the 'DIMDEL' command. This is very convenient for managing a dynamic number of elements. See
the reference for more details.
The last value of an array (I'll use an array called "a" in this example) is a[ LEN(a[])-1 ] or simply a[-1]. The value prior to the last value is a[-2].
You can easily clear the contents of an array with the command REDIM arrayname[0].
1.6 Jumpmarks:
Problem: The program runs once and then exits but we want it to keep running. Solution: We put a command in the program (in this case, at the end) to make it jump back to an earlier point within the program (in this case the start).Sample:
// A GOTO sample
beginning:
LET a=RND(600)
LET b=RND(400)
PRINT "Wow",a ,b
SHOWSCREEN
MOUSEWAIT
GOTO beginning
What is this doing? Firstly it defines a jump-mark with the name 'beginning' (indicated by the ":" at the end of the word). The program prints "Wow" to a random position and displays it on the screen until a mouse button is pressed. The 'GOTO' command at the end makes the program jump to the line labelled 'beginning'.
The example here shows what is called an "infinite loop" - ie. the program will never end. To break the program out of the loop you push the "ESC" key. Keep this in mind - pushing ESC will exit your program whenever you want to.
Program jumps can also be used to write 'blocks' of code called subroutines. These are a great way of organising and debugging your code.
To define a subroutine block use the menu command 'Project/New SUB', then use the wizard to create a new subroutine block ('SUB') within your project. The 'GOSUB' command can be used at any time to call your new subroutine block ('SUB') of code after which time it will continue where it left off.
A sample:
// A GOSUB Sample
PRINT "Start",0,0
GOSUB middle
PRINT "End",0 ,30
END
// A SUB Function called 'middle'
SUB middle: // Define the Sub
PRINT "Middle",0,20
RETURN // Jumps back to next command after the GOSUB call
ENDSUB // End Sub Marker
Output:
Start
Middle
End
A good example of a SUB would be a function for loading the input data for a program.
Splitting up your code into blocks makes them easier to debug and to share common code with other programs.
*Note*, SUBs are always placed at the end of the main program. Between the commands ENDSUB and SUB no code is allowed, only comments are allowed.
You are not allowed to use 'GOTO' to jump your program to a jump mark not inside the SUB you are in, nor are you allowed to call a GOTO from the main program to a jump mark inside a SUB. These simple rules, once gotten used to, force a clean programming style.
1.7 FOR-Loops:
Assuming you want to fill an array with '1's, how would you code this when the array is 10 fields long? 10 LET commands? This would work, but it's not practical - particularly if your array contains hundreds or thousands of fields.We need a set of commands for repeatedly calling a section of code to set an array value, and to increment a counter (pointing at the new array location) at the same time.
We use the 'FOR' and 'NEXT' commands to define the code section to be repeated, and a variable to store the 'loop' counter. Lets see an example :
For-Next Sample:
FOR x=0 TO 9
LET array[x]=1
NEXT
Line-by-line walkthrough:
FOR x=0 TO 9
LET array[x]=1
Assign the value 1 to the array 'array' at position 'x'
NEXT
x is increased by 1. The code between FOR and NEXT is repeated.
Now we fill an 100x100 array with the value 1.
FOR x=0 TO 99
FOR y=0 TO 99
LET array[x][y]=1
NEXT
NEXT
Loops can also run backwards - eg 'FOR x=9 to 0 STEP -1' to start the counter at 9 and go back to 0 decrementing by 1 every time.
You can increment the loop counter by values greater than 1 (eg. FOR x=0 to 9 STEP 2 - to make it count up by 2's) as well. The command STEP define the amount that will be added to / subtracted from the counter with every call to NEXT.
FOR x=24 TO 0 STEP -5
PRINT x, 0, (x*20)
NEXT
Output:
24
19
14
9
4
The commands
BREAK
CONTINUE
1.8 WHILE-Loops:
A WHILE loop will be evaluated (and repeated) as long as its defining argument is FALSE. eg. We want to obtain a random number in the range 3 to 10. To do this we can pick a random number from 0 to 10 and continue picking random numbers whilever the random number returned is less than 3.
LET z=0 // z starts < 3, otherwise WHILE loop
// won't ever be evaluated!
WHILE z<3 // As long as z is < 3,
z= RND(10) // z is a random number from 0-10
WEND // Repeat.
Another example : You want a number from 0 to 10, but not the 5. Keep picking random numbers whilever the last random number picked was 5.
LET z=5 // z=5, otherwise WHILE loop fails
WHILE z=5 // As long as z=5
z=RND(10) // z is a random number from 0-10
WEND // Repeat.
z=RND(7)+3 // (0 to 7) +3 = (3 to 10)