A preprocessor for less basic BASIC.

Abstract

BASIC, originally developed primarily as a teaching tool, has many extensions to allow its application to regular production programming. Naming restrictions of variables and line number references, however, are less satisfactory for longer programs making a program more difficult to read and maintain. The solution described is a program code preprocessor which accepts, long, meaningful variable names and line labels and converts the code to executable BASIC code. In addition, automatic library inclusions and a means of isolating sections of code for variable and label resolution facilitate creation and use of general purpose routines. Use of the preprocessor does not interfere with the capability to debug programs interactively which is one of the most helpful characteristics of interpretive implementations of BASIC.