title: VARIABLE!
motivation:
        Changing all occurences of the word VARIABLE to VARIABLE!
        is an easy way to make FIG-Forth-ish variables ANS-compatible.

description:
	The old forth implementations used an initializing
	value for the word VARIABLE but new ansi standard
	has left it out. This is often inconvenient for
	programmers, but the newer ansi form has some
	benefits for ROM-able forth system (where the
	VARIABLE goes into some kind of BSS section).

	In a discussion on c.l.f. it turned out that it
	is not quite easy to attach an initializing
	value after its declaration, the ansi words of
	SEARCH-WORDLIST and their kind are just not
	enough (even CURRENT is not in the standard).

	Otherwise, it turned out that the spelling VARIABLE!
	is the intuitive form that had been in use in
	quite some systems around. The implementation
	does usually take the same internal words as
	IMMEDIATE uses to attach its flag to the LAST
	compiled word, but these internals may be
	totally different either.

	Here I will just present the definition on
	the basis of LAST or LATEST, which had been
	in use in pre-ansi systems, and which can be
	found widely.

	: VARIABLE! VARIABLE LATEST NAME> >BODY ! ;
	: VARIABLE! VARIABLE LAST @ NAME> >BODY ! ;

possible-wrapper:
	../../from/Guido.Draheim
	REQUIRES| [DEFINED] [UNDEFINED] NAME> >BODY |
	> [UNDEFINED] VARIABLE! [IF]
	>   [DEFINED] LASTEST [IF]
	>   : VARIABLE! LATEST NAME> >BODY ! ;
	>   [ELSE]
	>   [DEFINED] LAST [IF]
	>   : VARIABLE! LAST @ NAME> >BODY ! ;
	>   [ELSE]
	>   .( can not implement VARIABLE! )
	>   [THEN] [THEN]
	> [THEN]

more-notes:

	Philip Preston wrote:
	> Why not ...
	>
	> : VARIABLE! ( x "<spaces>name" --  ) CREATE , ;
	>
	> ?

        mlg writes:
        I always believed that the initializing version of VARIABLE
        is called VAR ( n "name" -- )

--- $Id: index-v.txt,v 1.4 2001/10/24 23:01:19 mlg-r Exp $