TAL Programmer's Guide

Glossary
096254 Tandem Computers Incorporated Glossary–7
function. A procedure or subprocedure that returns a value to the calling procedure or
subprocedure.
global data. Data declarations that appear before the first procedure declaration;
identifiers that are accessible to all compilation units in a program, unless the the data
declarations appear in a BLOCK declaration that includes the PRIVATE keyword.
GOTO statement. A statement that unconditionally branches to a label within a
procedure or subprocedure.
group comparison expression. An expression that compares a variable with another
variable or with a constant.
high PIN. A process identification number (PIN) that is greater than 255. Contrast with
“low PIN.”
home terminal. Usually the terminal from which a process was started.
Identifier. A name you declare for an object such as a variable, LITERAL, or procedure.
IF expression. An expression that selects the THEN expression for a true state or the
ELSE expression for a false state.
IF statement. A statement that selects the THEN statement for a true state or the ELSE
statement for a false state.
implicit pointer. A pointer the compiler provides when you declare an indirect array or
indirect structure. See also “pointer.”
index register. Register R5, R6, or R7 of the register stack.
index. An element (byte, word, doubleword, or quadrupleword) offset or an
occurrence offset as follows:
Array index—an element offset from the zeroth element
Simple pointer index —an element offset from the address stored in the pointer
Structure or substructure index—an occurrence offset from the zeroth occurrence
indexing. Data access through an index appended to a variable name.
Inspect product. A source-level and machine-level interactive debugger.
INITIALIZER. A system procedure that reads and processes messages during process
startup.
instruction register. A facility that contains the instruction currently executing the
current code segment.
INT. A data type that requires a word of storage and that can represent one or two
ASCII characters or a 16-bit integer.
INT(16). An alias for INT.
INT(32). A data type that requires a doubleword of storage and that can represent a
32-bit integer.
INT(64). An alias for FIXED(0).