What are the 14 Keywords of Small Basic?

First published on MSDN on Oct 08, 2012

Authored by Ed Price

In the Small Basic FAQ , it mentions there are 14 keywords:

What are the unique features of the Small Basic language?

• Size
  The Small Basic language consists of just 14 keywords.

==========

Of the 14 keywords, we'll cover 16 of them in this blog post:

And
Else
ElseIf
EndFor
EndIf
EndSub
EndWhile
For
Goto
If
Or
Step
Sub
Then
To
While

==========

Examples...

If, Then, EndIf

If (Clock.Hour < 12) Then
TextWindow.WriteLine("Good Morning World")
EndIf

Else

We can shorten two if..then..endif statements to be just one by using a new word, else .

If we were to rewrite that program using else , this is how it will look:

Goto

For, To, EndFor

For..EndFor is, in programming terms, called a loop .  It allows you to take a variable, give it an initial and an end value and let the computer increment the variable for you.  Every time the computer increments the variable, it runs the statements between For and EndFor .

This program prints out numbers from 1 to 24 in order:

Step

But if you wanted the variable to be incremented by 2 instead of 1 (like say, you wanted to print out all the odd numbers between 1 and 24), you can use the loop to do that too.

While, EndWhile

The While loop is yet another looping method, that is useful especially when the loop count is not known ahead of time.  Whereas a For loop runs for a pre-defined number of times, the While loop runs until a given condition is true. In the example below, we’re halving a number until the result is greater than 1.

Sub, EndSub

A subroutine is a portion of code within a larger program that usually does something very specific, and that can be called from anywhere in the program.  Subroutines are identified by a name that follows the Sub keyword and are terminated by the EndSub keyword. Below is a program that includes the subroutine and calls it from various places.

And, ElseIf

If  percentage >= 75 Then

TextWindow.WriteLine("The student’s grade is A.")

ElseIf percentage < 75 And percentage >= 60  Then

TextWindow.WriteLine("The student’s grade is B.")

ElseIf percentage < 60 And percentage >= 35 Then

TextWindow.WriteLine("The student’s grade is C.")

Else

TextWindow.WriteLine("The student’s grade is D.")

EndIf

Or

Sub subRainyCount

If Rainy = "y" Or Rainy = "Y" Then

RainyCount = RainyCount + 1

EndIf

EndSub

Why are there 16 Keywords instead of 14?

Okay, so that was a bit of a joke. Sorry if it was lost on you. Usually when you say/read/hear "Of the X items, we'll cover Y of them..." the Y number is smaller than the X number, not larger.

"And" and "Or" are actually Operators, and they don't count as the Keywords.

So the Keyword list looks like this:

Else
ElseIf
EndFor
EndIf
EndSub
EndWhile
For
Goto
If
Step
Sub
Then
To
While

And the Operator list:

And
Or

If you'd like to write up some short explanations of some of those keywords, I'll add your explanations above the examples. Just leave the suggested text in the comments!

Thanks!

- Tall Basic Ed