[Coco] MC-10/CoCo BASIC - why did I code this way?

[Johann Klasek]

Sorry, I'm comming late to the party ...

On Thu, Dec 28, 2017 at 01:26:32PM -0600, Allen Huffman wrote:
[..]
> But I see weird things in the code. I load up arrays manually, like this:
> 
> 100 NM$(0)=???aaa???:NM$(1)=???xxx???:NM$(2)=???yyy???
[..]
> So why would I chose to do it manually? I assume this is a faster way to load the variables than READ/DATA, but I wonder if there was more.

I think it's just to save implementing a loop to fill up a small array.

> My thought:
> 
> I knew strings could live in program code, or in string memory. Perhaps I did NOT know that strings could print IN to code, and assumed:
> 
> 10 READ A$
> 20 DATA ???THIS IS A STRING???
> 
> ...would result in ???THIS IS A STRING??? being in the program space, PLUS a copy in string memory.

No, this string is only a reference into the program code too (for
CB/ECB). To force that the string is in both areas you have to write
something like this:

 100 A$="ABC"+""

The result of this expression will be placed into the string space (and a
death string in program space).

> That???s the only thing I can think of.
> 
> Was there any other reason why someone would EVER manually load an array in BASIC like that? Seems awfully inefficient to me, now, and would have back then since I was well aware of READ/DATA.

There is probably a break even point on array elements for which the
initialization by assignments takes less in size than a loop with
READ/DATA. Maybe 3? I actually didn't go through the calculation ...

In the program of the above example, are there more assignment to the
NM$() array?


-- 
The dragon on my side: http://klasek.at/hc/dragon/