spec - Local Sector 7 web page

group any number of lines together to form just one parse tree. Asignificant consequenceof the parse tree mechanism is limitation of the scope of a nonglobal variableto the statement block in which it is referenced.spec may detect error conditions during each of the phases described above. Most ofthese errors (and the interrupt character, usually a ˆC )reset spec to the commandlevelprompt.spec manages a memory arena that is used as storage for parse trees, macro andvariable symbol tables and command history. Inearlier versions of spec, this memoryarena was fixed in size. spec now allows the arena to grow up to the maximumdata-space size allowed by the system. The memstat command displays spec’s memoryusage.spec also manages some auxiliary files. The user’s state file stores the importantparts of the memory arena. This file is used to let the user exit and restart specwithout losing the program’s state. Another file stores the current data points anddata group configuration, so that they, too, will be available after exiting and restartingspec. These files are placed in the userfiles subdirectory of each configuration’sauxiliary file area.Syntax DescriptionCommentsA # introduces a comment. Everything following a # on an input line is ignored(unless the # is within a string). Comments are retained in macro definitions and arecounted in the macro length.Identifier sAn identifier is a name — it can be a variable name, a macro name or an array name.An identifier may begin with the letters a-z , A-Z or _ (underscore). The remainingletters in a name may be those characters or the digits 0-9 . There is no limit to thenumber of characters in a variable name. In the syntax rules described later, suchnames are represented by the term identifier.46 REFERENCE MANUAL INTERIM WORK-IN-PROGRESS (8/16/01) NOT FOR GENERAL DISTRIBUTION