OpenEuphoria

Re: Document A Project

• Posted by Greg Haberek <ghaberek at gmail.com> Feb 19, 2005
• 568 views

> Perhaps I was not clear on what I said. If you were writing down code on paper
> how would you write it down?

Well, there's two different ways I've used: Flow-charts and Pseudo code.

Flow charts are fun. I had a whole 1 year class on flowcharting in
high school. Flow charts are better for languages like COBOL, RPG and
BASIC. I haven't had much luck with flowcharting in Euphoria, and I
don't even know if anyone uses flowcharts any more. But whatever you
do, don't lose your flow chart stencil!! (They won't give you another
one.)

Pseudocode is a way of "talking-while-programming" as one of my
professors once put it. This allows you to be fairly generic while
still hold the form and logic of programming. Its also how I jot down
code if I'm sitting in class and something comes to me. I also draw
out window layouts on blank paper first, *in pencil*.  Its a lot
easier to have a visual reference when you're building a window.

this:

<pseudocode>
-- generic file input routine
Declare 'data' as a sequence
Declare 'line' as an object
Declare 'fn' as an integer

Open 'fn' for reading

If fn is -1 then
    Die.

Intialize data to an empty sequence.

Read a 'line' from 'fn'

While 'line' is a sequence
    Append 'line' to 'data'
    Read another 'line' from 'fn'

Close 'fn'

Output 'data'
</pseudocode>

turns to this:

-- generic file input routine
--Declare 'data' as a sequence
    sequence data
--Declare 'line' as an object
    object line
--Declare 'fn' as an integer
    integer fn

--Open 'fn' for reading
    fn = open( "somefile", "r" )

--If fn is -1 then
    if fn = -1 then
--    Die.
        puts(1, "could not read somefile\n")
        abort(1)
    end if

--Initialize data to an empty sequence.
    data = {}

--Read a 'line' from 'fn'
    line = gets( fn )

--While 'line' is a sequence
    while sequence( line ) do
--    Append 'line' to 'data'
        data = append( data, line )
--    Read another 'line' from 'fn'
        line = gets( fn )
    end while

--Close 'fn'
    close( fn )

--Output 'data'
    pretty_print(1, data, {})