ALIAS

Syntax

ALIAS old_keyword$ TO new_keyword(ALIAS_CODE) or

ALIAS new_keyword TO old_keyword$(SAILA_CODE)

Location

ALIAS (DIY Toolkit - Vol A)

This command is similar to NEW_NAME and REPLACE.

It allows you to assign another name to machine code Procedures and Functions which are currently resident in memory. Both versions of the command are the same, except that the second variant expects you to pass the two parameters in the opposite order.

We shall deal with the first variant.

The first parameter (old_keyword$) must appear as a string and is the original name of the Procedure or Function which is to be renamed. The second parameter (new_keyword) is the new name to be used - this must not appear as a string, but simply as the actual keyword to use.

The original definition is not lost and therefore you can still use the original name to call the machine code procedure or function (as well as the new name).

If old_keyword$ does not contain the name of a machine code Procedure or Function, then either a ‘Not Found’ or ‘Bad Name’ error will be reported.

Example

Try the following short program:

10 INPUT 'Enter Your Name: '; a$
20 PRINT a$
30 ALIAS 'INPUT' TO XINPUT
40 XINPUT 'Enter My Name with XINPUT: '; s$
50 INPUT 'You can still use INPUT to Enter your Name: ';t$
60 PRINT s$ / t$

NOTE 1

Because the original definition is not lost, you can go on to assign further ‘aliases’ to the original name, but any attempt to assign an alias to the new name (XINPUT in the above example will give a Not Found error).

NOTE 2

You should not use ALIAS from within programs compiled with TURBO and SuperCharge.

NOTE 3

If a program compiled with TURBO or SuperCharge reports an error when you try to EXECute the program, such as ‘SYS_VARS is Not Defined’, you could use ALIAS from SuperBASIC to circumvent this problem, for example by using:

ALIAS ‘SYSBASE’,’SYS_VARS’

NOTE 4

The new alias is not converted by this command to uppercase - that is up to you (not all keywords are in uppercase after all).

NOTE 5

You should not use all of the new names set with ALIAS in programs which are to be compiled with TURBO or SuperCharge if you want to make the most of those compilers. In particular, ALIASes of the following keywords will cause problems:

RESPR (unless it has been redefined to work in the common heap before you used ALIAS).

RUN, INPUT, READ, EOF, CLEAR, DIMN, STOP, NEW and various TURBO toolkit commands.

You will also lose out on optimisations on the following:

PRINT, BLOCK, CODE, CHR$, LEN, PI, PEEK, PEEK_W, PEEK_L, POKE, POKE_W and POKE_L.

NOTE 6

If you wish to use ALIAS for MODE and use Speedscreen, ensure Speedscreen is loaded and enabled before you use ALIAS (Speedscreen redefines MODE).

If you wish to use ALIAS for mathematical functions and use the Lightning fast maths routines, again, ensure that Lighning maths is loaded before you use ALIAS if you want the faster routines implemented by Lightning.

NOTE 7

If you want to use this command from within a Multiple SBASIC on SMS or a MultiBASIC on Minerva, you will need to use the variant of the command implemented in the file SAILA_CODE.

CROSS-REFERENCE

See also REPLACE and NEW_NAME.

_NAME$ allows you to look at the name table.