How to Read the Syntax Diagrams

Throughout this book, syntax is described using the structure defined below. This is similar to, but slightly different than, the IBM syntax diagrams used in other ooRexx reference documentation. The author is calling these diagrams simplified railroad tracks. It primarily strives to limit all diagrams to 2 lines, and does away with much of the complexity of true IBM railroad tracks. The body of text following the syntax diagrams will resolve any ambiguities in the diagram.





In this reference, the syntax being presented is the syntax for method invocations and function calls. The diagrams show the method, or function, names and their arguments. For method invocations, the section the method is included in, and / or the text itself, make it clear as to which class the method belongs to. The arguments to the method or function are enclosed in parenthesis and separated by commas. The arguments are represented by appropriate variable names and these variable names are then described in the text for the method. When arguments are optional, the default value and or behavior if the argument is omitted is also described in the text. In all cases, the text rather than the syntax diagram should be considered definitive.

The following example shows the described syntax: