3 ms·

The name lookup routine is "Find name in catalogue" here: https://archive.org/details/BBCMicroCompendium/page/314/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/BBCMicroC

by tom_ 3y ago

The name lookup routine is "Find name in catalogue" here: https://archive.org/details/BBCMicroCompendium/page/314/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/BBCMicroCompendium/page/314/mode... There's no obvious length check. I guess the actual limit will be 255 or 254 characters, maybe minus a bit if the info block has any extra data. EDIT: previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19246063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19246063

dspillett 3y ago
Hmm. I wonder where I get the 40-character-limit memory so strongly from… Line length was limited by a byte-length counter and IIRC included the line number and maybe EOL, so would be something like 253 or 252. Do the maximum usable variable name length will be a couple of bytes less than that as you'll need a couple of characters to do something with is (LongLongLong...Long=1 and so forth). EDIT: oh, interesting. The only references I can find to a variable name limit of 40 characters are referring to the PC BASIC implementations by MS: GWBasic, QuickBasic, and QBasic. I did do work in those too.