An object as both an array and a variable?

Question

I inherited this old TurboBasic code base, and I am converting it to something more modern. Can you explain how in this code snippet Wind can be both a variable and an array?

Dim Wind(1:3,2:3)

Sub WindFunction

     Shared Wind()
     local var
     Erase Wind

     Wind = 123

     var = Wind

     Wind(1,2) = 567

End Sub

Several basic dialects treat scalars and arrays as distinct objects even if they share the same name. Unfortunately I can't find a reference where this is stated explicitely. — Howard, Jul 07 '11 at 17:28
Many BASICs don't require you to declare your scalar variables. In this case, though, it looks more like it could be a global. — Troy, Jul 18 '11 at 22:05
@Chet You won't find anything. My questions take up the whole tag. — Connor Albright, Jul 19 '11 at 17:01

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:55

The wikipedia page on Turbo Basic suggests that it is one of the dialects where

A ... double
A$ ... string
A(...) ... array of double

are treated as totally separate variables, so in your case you have

Wind(...) ... an array of double
Wind ... a double

These dialects treat most variables' types just by their name. Only arrays need to be declared. Sometimes even arrays can be addressed without declaration, they are then assumed to be an array with one dimension and a size of 10.

Some more links can be found here on SO (oh, just saw it's by you, too *g*): https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4147605/learning-turbobasic

An object as both an array and a variable?

1 Answers1