NEWCHAN%

Syntax	NEWCHAN%
Location	Function (DIY Toolkit - Vol R)

When writing / designing SuperBASIC programs, it is essential that you try to keep the channel numbers as small as possible for two reasons - compilers only allow a fixed number of channels to be OPENed by a program (normally 16) and if you OPEN #100,scr (for example), space has to be created by SuperBASIC in the channel table for channels #1 to #99, thus wasting a lot of memory if those channels are not used.

This function can therefore be quite useful - it looks at the channel table and returns the number of the next available channel number which can be OPENed.

Example

After:

NEW
PRINT NEWCHAN%

will always return 3, as the only channels OPEN will be #0, #1 and #2.

CROSS-REFERENCE

OPEN allows you to open a channel. FOPEN and similar functions will automatically open the next available channel number.