Can you give varied levels of priority to blocks of code?

[Archangel]

HI STEVE B.

Wow that is very close to my first try which I could not get to work I had used button commands and IF THEN statements and included an ENDIF statment within the subroutine, I see you put them all at near the end of program, I am curious about the indenting you used, is it there so you the programmer can keep it straight in your mind or does it affect the program in some way?

Anyway I want to thank you and Melanie for your help, I really appreciate it!
I hope to be helpful to someone else someday!

Best Regards
Joe Stokes

[SteveB]

I am curious about the indenting you used, is it there so you the programmer can keep it straight in your mind or does it affect the program in some way?

Joe,
Indenting is just a way to keep nested levels of code straight. It is purely technique and does not affect the code in any way (with the exception of Labels, which should start in the first column). I've seen a number of different schemes. It is just one aspect in organizing your programs. The key is find something that works for you and sticking to it religiously. Then, when you come back to a piece of code you wrote 6 months ago (or you have a complex, many line program), you can quickly reaquiant yourself with what is happening and find what you need easily.

Here is a very nice post by Melanie on the idea of program structure. If you have nothing to start from, you can't get much better than learning the ropes from someone like Melanie.

I see you put {the IF... statements} all at near the end of program

Again, in this case just another way to orginize things to hopefully make the logic a little clearer.

Wow that is very close to my first try which I could not get to work

Maybe just for fun you could post the code you tried that did not work, and folks here could show you why it didn't. Could be a chance to learn from some very smart, capable folks (from whom I myself am indepted greatly). If so, look here for formating, particularly using [code]...[/code] to format your posts so they are more readable.

Good Luck,
Steve

[Archangel]

I wrote over the file I tried originally, with the while / wend code but I figured out why it didn't work, I had made labels and coded them this way
b1 var byte
b2 var byte
b3 var byte
LABEL!:

button1 ,port ,...
anyway I copied the button command out of the book assigned the variables to them and used IF Var b1= 1 then
serout 7,n2400, [" string"]
endif
LABEL2: more of the same

and what it did was display all the strings in a loop

so I trashed that code and went with my no variable code
LABEL1: while PortA.0 = 1
serout ["mystring"]
wend

LABEL2: WHILE PortA.1 =1
SEROUT ["more strings"]
wend
ETC . . .

and that would display at the push of a button
whereas you put the if statements under the main routine and made the LABEL statements into sub routines being called by the IF's
Like ah said I was Green ! I've only had PBP for about 2 weeks now and never coded anything before, . . . well PC Batch files, but nothing else.
I needed to give my code precedence and you showed me the way!
AND IT WORKS!

Thank You again
Joe Stokes

" I have never been lost, but there were a few times I was a might bewildered" ... Danial Boone