TAL Reference Manual

Glossary
Glossary—526371.001
Glossary-16
USE statement.
USE statement. A statement that reserves an index register for your use.
user data segment. An automatically allocated segment that provides modifiable, private
storage for the variables of your process.
value parameter. An argument for which a procedure (or subprocedure) passes a value,
rather than the address of the argument, to a called procedure (or
subprocedure). The called procedure or subprocedure can modify the passed
value but not the original argument in the caller’s scope. Contrast with reference
parameter
variable. A symbolic representation of an item or a group of items or elements. A simple
variable, array, structure, simple pointer, structure pointer, or equivalenced variable. A
variable can store data that can change during program execution.
VARIABLE procedure. A procedure that you declare using the VARIABLE keyword; a
procedure to which you can add formal parameters but then you must recompile
all its callers; a procedure for which the compiler considers all parameters to be
optional, even if some are required by your code. Contrast with EXTENSIBLE
procedure
virtual memory. A range of addresses that processes use to reference physical memory
and disk storage.
volume. A disk drive; a pair of disk drives that forms a mirrored disk.
WHILE statement. A statement that executes a pretest loop during a true condition. word.
A 16-bit storage unit for the INT data type. TAL uses a 16-bit word regardless of the
word size used by the system hardware.
XOR. A bitwise logical operator that performs a bitwise exclusive OR operation.