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SAY
[SIC\]SAY ["Text"] ['Expression'] ['Variable'] [/FORMAT ...]
[/NOADVANCE]
Display strings or character variable or implicitly formatted arithmetic
(or logical) expressions in the shortest possible format, unless the
/FORMAT option is used.
Simple text:
Simple text can be displayed by passing double-quoted strings to the
command, e.g.
SIC> say "Hello, world!"
Hello, world!
An unquoted argument will also be displayed "as is", like a simple
string.
Variable:
The contents of a scalar variable can be displayed by evaluating it
with single-quotes, e.g.
SIC> say 'pi'
3.1415926535898
Single quotes tell Sic to evaluate the variable and build a repre-
sentating string showing its contents. Then this string is passed to
SAY for display. Though Sic does its best to format the result, you
can customize the format with the option /FORMAT. Array variables
can not be displayed all at once using single quotes (but scalar
subsets can be evaluated e.g. SAY 'A[1]'), use SAY /FORMAT to dis-
play arrays.
Expression:
Expressions can be evaluated using single quotes, e.g.
SIC> say '2*pi'
6.2831853071796
Like for variables, Sic evaluates the result and builds a represen-
tative string passed to SAY for display. Here also, the result must
be scalar.
Multiple arguments:
SAY can display as many strings as there are arguments to the com-
mand. Remember that in Sic, arguments are separated by one or more
spaces. Each argument can be of any kind explained above. For exam-
ple:
SIC> say "PI =" 'pi'
PI = 3.1415926535898
Note that the number spaces separating the input arguments are not
significant. In return, SAY will implicitely separate each string by
one blank.
Concatenated arguments:
Arguments can be concatenated by gluing any of the 3 basic kinds to-
gether. For example:
SIC> say "("'pi'")"
(3.1415926535898)
Note that there is no space between the components. In this case,
Sic does its best to evaluate each component and produce a single
temporary string concatenating all the individual representations.
Then this formatted string is passed to the command SAY for display.
Note that SAY sees only one argument (no blank = no separator => one
argument).
This syntax is not specific to SAY: it is a Sic feature which can be
used in other commands. Be careful you have no control on the format
choosen by Sic at concatenation time: /FORMAT is useless as it would
affect only the single temporary string seen by SAY after formatting
by Sic.
Output:
By default, SAY writes its output text on the terminal. However, it
can be redirected to a file thanks to the command SIC\SIC OUTPUT
(see HELP for details)..
GUI mode:
In GUI mode (see command GUI\PANEL), SAY writes the text in the cur-
rent window. SAY without parameters inserts a separator.
Subsections
Gildas manager
2024-04-19