Arguements

ID:158903
 
Jun 12 2009, 2:01 pm
Er, hi. I'm not entirely sure if this is where it should go, but I'm having difficulty understanding something in the Blue Book. Which as the title suggest, is Arguements! I've made a little notebook and was writing down all the definitions, and putting it in simple terms that even I can understand. But I just got to this part in the Blue Book.

"The parentheses after a procedure name are more than decorative. They can be used to define procedure parameters. This allows for providing additional information to the procedure. The information is stored in a variable, that is, a piece of memory with a name. To confuse matters, a programmer will often call such variables, which serve as the parameters to procedures, arguments. Why? Well, just for the sake of argument."

From what I understand, it seems like an arguement is a variable that has saved information on a procedure? I'm not entirely sure and I figured I should ask instead of just assuming things. I apologize if I put this in the wrong forum category, it just seemed like this is where this sort of things go.
Jun 12 2009, 2:10 pm
An argument is like a variable that stays within a procedure. When you call that procedure, what you put in the parenthesis will transfer into variables within that procedure.

Example:
mob
   Login()
      Say("Hello, world!")
   verb //Similar to procedures, but what is in their parentheses are prompted.
      Say(t as text)
         world<<"[name]: [t]"
         //When you log in, Say() is called with the argument "Hello, world!" as 't'.
      Addition(n1 as num, n2 as num)  //Multiple arguments separated with commas, space is not necessary.
      //"as num" prompts for a number only.
         src<<AddUp(n1,n2) //Display the result of AddUp() to src. The order in which arguments are placed DOES matter. Just not in addition because of the commutative property.
   proc/AddUp(first, second) //The AddUp procedure takes in 2 arguments.
      return first+second //Return value(result) is the first + second argument.
Jun 12 2009, 2:26 pm
In response to Kaiochao
Ah, I think I get it now. I wasn't expecting a response quite so fast! Really helped though, thank you.