The Structure of a Sheerpower Program

The Structure of a Sheerpower Program

A Sheerpower program is made from simple, readable structural elements. Each element has a clear purpose, and together they make programs easier to write, test, debug, and maintain.

This tutorial gives a quick overview of the most important structural elements found in Sheerpower programs.

• Statements — one logical instruction at a time.
• Multiple Statements on One Line

  Two statements can be placed on a single source line by separating them with a backslash \:

  a = 355 \ b = 113

  This behaves exactly as if each statement were on its own line. In source files, prefer one statement per line for readability and easier debugging.

• Comments — use // or ! to explain intent, assumptions, non-obvious logic, or other important details.
• Line continuation — long statements may be split across multiple source lines when the compiler can clearly see that the statement is not yet complete. This includes continuation after commas in built-in function calls and routine calls. A source line can also be explicitly continued by ending it with a trailing &.
• Built-in function calls — use parentheses, with multiple arguments separated by commas. A trailing comma indicates an implied line continuation.
• Routines and Routine calling — use with and, when needed, returning. Do not use call or parentheses. A trailing comma indicates an implied line continuation. For details see Routines and Variable Scoping.
• Variable naming — Sheerpower is case-insensitive, so MY_name is the same as my_name. Tutorial examples use lowercase names and snake_case for consistency. For more details, see Variables, Data Types, Declaring Variables, Comments, and Database Access.
• Type suffixes — when a variable's type is not explicitly declared, Sheerpower uses suffixes to identify common types: string variables end with $, Boolean variables end with ?, and numeric variables have no suffix.
• Code blocks — structured blocks use clear ending statements such as end if, end select, and end do.
• Include files — use %include to bring shared source code into a program.
• Compiler directives — directives such as %include, %debug, and %todo provide instructions to the compiler. See Simplified Unit Testing, and Debugging and Program Segmentation and Source Merging.
• Program flow — programs normally execute from top to bottom, with loops, branches, routines, and exception handling controlling the flow when needed.
• Layout conventions — use indentation, line wrapping, spacing, and clear organization to make programs easier to read and maintain.

Below is a coding sandbox where you can enter, edit, and run Sheerpower code. Type any Sheerpower code into the sandbox, then choose Run to try it. Each tutorial includes a sandbox.