The text read off it
[page 112]
CONDITIONAL EXPRESSION
In the Commercial Translator language, an expression which has the particular characteristic that, taken as a whole, it may be either true or false, in accordance with the rules given in Chapter 2 of this manual.
CONDITION-NAME
A name assigned by the programmer to a value, representing one of several conditions, which may be present in a data field, in accordance with the rules given in Chapter 2 of this manual.
CONSTANT
A value which is to be used in a program without alteration, in accordance with the rules given in Chapter 2 of this manual. While a literal may be thought of as a special form of constant, most constants have names which are specified by data description entries, as explained in Chapter 4.
DATA DESCRIPTION
That portion of a Commercial Translator program which consists of entries defining the nature and characteristics of the data to be used in the program. The data description is one of the three main divisions of a Commercial Translator program, the others being the procedure description and the environment description. (See Chapter 4.)
DATA-NAME
A name assigned by the programmer to an item of data for use in a Commercial Translator program, in accordance with the rules given in Chapter 2 of this manual.
DIVISION HEADER
One of three special words used to identify the beginning of a main portion of a Commercial Translator source program. The three words are *DATA, *ENVIRONMENT, and *PROCEDURE, identifying, respectively, portions of the data description, environment description, and procedure description divisions.
ENVIRONMENT DESCRIPTION
That portion of a Commercial Translator program in which the programmer specifies the equipment and equipment features to be used in a program, such as the nature of the input and output equipment, the size and nature of the storage area available, and so on. This subject is discussed in the manuals covering the processors for the various data processing systems.
FIELD
In the Commercial Translator system, an item of data which can be operated upon by the arithmetic and/or data transmission verbs. It is usually thought of as a small unit or element of data, as opposed to a record, which is usually composed of a number of fields.
FIELD PICTORIAL
The representation of the nature and length of an item of data by means of the Commercial Translator format characters, in accordance with the rules given in Chapter 4 of this manual.
FIGURATIVE CONSTANT
One of several constants which have been "pre-named" and "pre-defined" in a Commercial Translator processor so that they can be written in the procedure statements without data description entries. The figurative constants are BLANK(S), ZERO(S), HIGH.VALUE(S), and LOW.VALUE(S).
FILE (noun)
In the Commercial Translator system, a body of data, stored in some external medium, which can be made accessible to the system by the verb OPEN.
FIXED WORD
One of a selected list of words having special meanings in the Commercial Translator system and not available to the programmer except in accordance with the rules specified in this manual. A list of fixed words appears in Appendix 2 of this manual.
FLOATING POINT
A form of representing a number x by a pair of numbers Y and z in the form x = Y × Bᶻ, where B is the number base used. In the decimal system, B = 10; in the binary system, B = 2. The decimal system is used in the Commercial Translator source language. To illustrate: the number 127.6 would normally be represented as .1276 × 10³ (or, in Commercial Translator notation, .1276F3). The quantity Y is called the fraction or mantissa, and in the best notation lies between 0 and 1. The quantity z is called the exponent or