Forth/Forth_Primer.pdf.txt

And so Forth...

Copyright J.L. Bezemer

2001-04-06

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Contents

1 Preface

1.1 Copyright

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1.2

Introduction . . .

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1.3 About this primer . . .

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2 Forth fundamentals

2.1 Making calculations without parenthesis . . .

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2.2 Manipulating the stack . . . .

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2.3 Deep stack manipulators

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2.4 Pass arguments to functions . .

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2.5 Making your own words

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2.6 Adding comment

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2.7 Text-format of Forth source . .

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2.8 Displaying string constants . .

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2.9 Declaring variables . .

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2.10 Using variables .

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2.11 Built-in variables . . .

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2.12 What is a cell? . .

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2.13 Declaring and using constants

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2.14 Built-in constants . . .

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2.15 Using booleans .

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2.16 IF-ELSE constructs . .

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2.17 FOR-NEXT constructs . . . .

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2.18 WHILE-DO constructs . . . .

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2.19 REPEAT-UNTIL constructs

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2.20 Infinite loops

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2.21 Getting a number from the keyboard .

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2.22 Aligning numbers . . .

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3 Arrays and strings

CONTENTS

3.1 Declaring arrays of numbers

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3.2 Using arrays of numbers

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3.3 Creating arrays of constants . .

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3.4 Using arrays of constants . . .

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3.5 Creating strings .

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Initializing strings . . .

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3.7 Getting the length of a string .

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3.8 Printing a string variable . . .

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3.9 Copying a string variable . . .

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3.10 Slicing strings . .

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3.11 Appending strings . . .

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3.12 Comparing strings . . .

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3.13 Removing trailing spaces . . .

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3.14 String constants and string variables .

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3.15 The count byte

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3.16 Printing individual characters .

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3.17 Getting ASCII values .

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3.18 When to use [CHAR] or CHAR . . .

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3.19 Printing spaces

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3.20 Fetching individual characters

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3.21 Storing individual characters .

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3.22 Getting a string from the keyboard . .

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3.23 What is the TIB? . . .

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3.24 What is the PAD? . . .

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3.25 How do I use TIB and PAD? .

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3.26 Temporary string constants . .

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3.27 Simple parsing .

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3.28 Converting a string to a number . . . .

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3.29 Controlling the radix .

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3.30 Pictured numeric output . . . .

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3.31 Converting a number to a string . . . .

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CONTENTS

4 Stacks and colon definitions

4.1 The address of a colon-definition . . .

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4.2 Vectored execution . .

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4.3 Using values . . .

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4.4 The stacks . . . .

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4.5 Saving temporary values

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4.6 The Return Stack and the DO..LOOP . . . .

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4.7 Other Return Stack manipulations

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4.8 Altering the flow with the Return Stack . . .

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4.9 Leaving a colon-definition . .

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4.10 How deep is your stack?

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5 Advanced topics

5.1 Booleans and numbers

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Including your own definitions . . . .

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5.3 Conditional compilation . . .

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5.7 Fixed point calculation . . . .

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I Appendices

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6

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Preface

1.1 Copyright

Copyright (c) 2001 J.L. Bezemer.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free
Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with
the Invariant Sections being ”GNU Free Documentation License”, ”Introduction and ”About this primer”,
with the Front-Cover Texts being ”And so Forth..., J.L. Bezemer”, and with the Back-Cover Texts being
”The initial version of this primer was written by Hans Bezemer, author of the 4tH compiler.”. A copy of
the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

1.2

Introduction

Don’t you hate it? You’ve just got a new programming language and you’re trying to write your first
program. You want to use a certain feature (you know it’s got to be there) and you can’t find it in the
manual.

I’ve had that experience many times. So in this manual you will find many short features on all kind of
topics. How to input a number from the keyboard, what a cell is, etc.

I hope this will enable you to get quickly on your way. If it didn’t, email me at ’hansoft@bigfoot.com’.
You will not only get an answer, but you will help future Forth users as well.

You can use this manual two ways. You can either just get what you need or work your way through. Every
section builds on the knowledge you obtained in the previous sections. All sections are grouped into levels.
We advise you to use what you’ve learned after you’ve worked your way through a level.

If this isn’t enough to teach you Forth you can always get a real good textbook on Forth, like "Starting
Forth" by Leo Brodie. Have fun!

1.3 About this primer

This primer was originally written for 4tH, my own Forth compiler. 4tH isn’t ANS-Forth compliant, by
ANS-Forth standards not even a ANS-Forth system. After a while I got questions why certain examples
weren’t working. Since I tested every single one of them I wondered why. Until it dawned on me: people
learning Forth were using my primer!

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CHAPTER1. PREFACE

So due to high demand I started to rewrite it for ANS-Forth compliant systems. Most of these systems
don’t even have a manual at all so the need for it should be great. The next question was: which format.
Since I wanted to learn LYX anyway, I settled for that. You can produce various formats with it which are
readable on most systems, including MS-DOS, MS-Windows and Linux.

The next question was: how far do you go. The original version was heavily geared towards 4tH, which
reflects my own views on Forth. And those views sometimes contradict to those of ANS-Forth. However,
since Leo Brodie took the liberty in ”Thinking Forth” to express his views, I thought I should have the
freedom to express mine.

Some examples, especially in the ”Advanced topics” chapter, use special 4tH extensions. Fortunately
Wil Baden had helped me to write a 4tH-to-ANS-Forth interface. Since some of these extensions cover
functionalities commonly found in other languages I decided to keep those sections in, using the Easy4tH
definitions. In the previous chapters you’ll find some 4tH words as well, but very sparingly.

You may find that some examples are not working with your specific Forth compiler. That may have several
reasons. First, your compiler may not support all ANS-Forth wordsets. Second, your compiler may not be
completely ANS-Forth compliant. I’ve tested most of these examples with GForth or Win32Forth, which
are (almost) 100% ANS-Forth compliant. Third, your compiler might be case-sensitive.

The ANS-Forth standard is a very important document. I can only advise you to get it. You should have
no trouble finding it on the internet. I can only hope that the compiler you chose at least documented its
ANS-Forth compatibility.

This primer was written in the hope that it will be useful and that starting Forthers aren’t put off by the high
price of Forth textbooks. It is dedicated to Leo Brodie, who taught me much more than just Forth.

Hans Bezemer

Den Haag, 2001-03-07

Chapter 2

Forth fundamentals

2.1 Making calculations without parenthesis

To use Forth you must understand Reverse Polish Notation. This is a way to write arithmetic expressions.
The form is a bit tricky for people to understand, since it is geared towards making it easy for the computer
to perform calculations; however, most people can get used to the notation with a bit of practice.

Reverse Polish Notation stores values in a stack. A stack of values is just like a stack of books: one value
is placed on top of another. When you want to perform a calculation, the calculation uses the top numbers
on the stack. For example, here’s a typical addition operation:

1 2 +

When Forth reads a number, it just puts the value onto the stack. Thus 1 goes on the stack, then 2 goes on
the stack. When you put a value onto the stack, we say that you push it onto the stack. When Forth reads
the operator ’+’, it takes the top two values off the stack, adds them, then pushes the result back onto the
stack. This means that the stack contains:

3

after the above addition. As another example, consider:

2 3 4 + *

(The ’*’ stands for multiplication.) Forth begins by pushing the three numbers onto the stack. When it
finds the ’+’, it takes the top two numbers off the stack and adds them. (Taking a value off the stack is
called popping the stack.) Forth then pushes the result of the addition back onto the stack in place of the
two numbers. Thus the stack contains:

2 7

When Forth finds the ’*’ operator, it again pops the top two values off the stack. It multiplies them, then
pushes the result back onto the stack, leaving:

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CHAPTER2. FORTHFUNDAMENTALS

The following list gives a few more examples of Reverse Polish expressions. After each, we show the
contents of the stack, in parentheses.

7 2 -
2 7 -
12 3 /
-12 3 /
4 5 + 2 *
4 5 2 + *
4 5 2 * -

(5)
(-5)
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2.2 Manipulating the stack

You will often find that the items on the stack are not in the right order or that you need a copy. There are
stack-manipulators which can take care of that.

To display a number you use ’.’, pronounced "dot".
’SWAP’ reverses the order of two items on the stack. If we enter:

It takes a number from the stack and displays it.

2 3 . . cr

Forth answers:

3 2

If you want to display the numbers in the same order as you entered them, you have to enter:

2 3 swap . . cr

In that case Forth will answer:

2 3

You can duplicate a number using ’DUP’. If you enter:

2 . . cr

Forth will complain that the stack is empty. However, if you enter:

2 dup . . cr

Forth will display:

2 2

Another way to duplicate a number is using ’OVER’. In that case not the topmost number of the stack is
duplicated, but the number beneath. E.g.

2 3 dup . . . cr

2.3. DEEPSTACKMANIPULATORS

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will give you the following result:

3 3 2

But this one:

2 3 over . . . cr

will give you:

2 3 2

Sometimes you want to discard a number, e.g. you duplicated it to check a condition, but since the test
failed, you don’t need it anymore. ’DROP’ is the word we use to discard numbers. So this:

2 3 drop .

will give you "2" instead of "3", since we dropped the "3".

The final one I want to introduce is ’ROT’. Most users find ’ROT’ the most complex one since it has its
effects deep in the stack. The thirdmost item to be exact. This item is taken from its place and put on top
of the stack. It is ’rotated’, as this small program will show you:

1 2 3
. . . cr
( This will display ’3 2 1’ as expected)
1 2 3
rot
. . . cr
( This will display ’1 3 2’!)

\ 1 is the thirdmost item
\ display all numbers

\ same numbers stacked
\ performs a ’ROT’
\ same operation

2.3 Deep stack manipulators

There are two manipulators that can dig deeper into the stack, called ’PICK’ and ’ROLL’ but I cannot
recommend them. A stack is NOT an array! So if there are some Forth-83 users out there, I can only tell
you: learn Forth the proper way. Programs that have so many items on the stack are just badly written. Leo
Brodie agrees with me.

If you are in ’deep’ trouble you can always use the returnstack manipulators. Check out that section.

2.4 Pass arguments to functions

There is no easier way to pass arguments to functions as in Forth. Functions have another name in Forth.
We call them "words". Words take their "arguments" from the stack and leave the "result" on the stack.

Other languages, like C, do exactly the same. But they hide the process from you. Because passing data to
the stack is made explicit in Forth it has powerful capabilities. In other languages, you can get back only
one result. In Forth you can get back several!

All words in Forth have a stack-effect-diagram. It describes what data is passed to the stack in what order
and what is returned. The word ’*’ for instance takes numbers from the stack, multiplies them and leaves
the result on the stack. It’s stack-effect-diagram is:

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CHAPTER2. FORTHFUNDAMENTALS

n1 n2 -- n3

Meaning it takes number n1 and n2 from the stack, multiplies them and leaves the product (number n3) on
the stack. The rightmost number is always on top of the stack, which means it is the first number which
will be taken from the stack. The word ’.’ is described like this:

n --

Which means it takes a number from the stack and leaves nothing. Now we get to the most powerful feature
of it all. Take this program:

2
3
*
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( leaves a number on the stack)
( leaves a number on the stack on top of the 2)
( takes both from the stack and leaves the result)
( takes the result from the stack and displays it)

Note that all data between the words ’*’ and ’.’ is passed implicitly! Like putting LEGO stones on top of
another. Isn’t it great?

2.5 Making your own words

Of course, every serious language has to have a capability to extend it. So has Forth. The only thing
you have to do is to determine what name you want to give it. Let’s say you want to make a word which
multiplies two numbers and displays the result.

Well, that’s easy. We’ve already seen how you have to code it. The only words you need are ’*’ and ’.’.
You can’t name it ’*’ because that name is already taken. You could name it ’multiply’, but is that a word
you want to type in forever? No, far too long.

Let’s call it ’*.’. Is that a valid name? If you’ve programmed in other languages, you’ll probably say it isn’t.
But it is! The only characters you can’t use in a name are whitespace characters (<CR>, <LF>, <space>,
<TAB>). It depends on the Forth you’re using whether it is case- sensitive or not, but usually it isn’t.

So ’*.’ is okay. Now how do we turn it into a self-defined word. Just add a colon at the beginning and a
semi-colon at the end:

: *. * . ;

That’s it. Your word is ready for use. So instead of:

2 3 * .

We can type:

: *. * . ;
2 3 *.

And we can use our ’*.’ over and over again. Hurray, you’ve just defined your first word in Forth!

2.6. ADDINGCOMMENT

2.6 Adding comment

13

Adding comment is very simple. In fact, there are two ways to add comment in Forth. That is because we
like programs with a lot of comment.

The first form you’ve already encountered. Let’s say we want to add comment to this little program:

: *. * . ;
2 3 *.

So we add our comment:

: *. * . ;
2 3 *.

This will multiply and print two numbers

Forth will not understand this. It will desperately look for the words ’this’, ’will’, etc. However the word
’\’ will mark everything up to the end of the line as comment. So this will work:

: *. * . ;
2 3 *.

\ This will multiply and print two numbers

There is another word called ’(’ which will mark everything up to the next ’)’ as comment. Yes, even
multiple lines. Of course, these lines may not contain a ’)’ or you’ll make Forth very confused. So this
comment will be recognized too:

: *. * . ;
2 3 *.

( This will multiply and print two numbers)

Note that there is a whitespace-character after both ’\’ and ’(’. This is mandatory!

2.7 Text-format of Forth source

Forth source can be simple ASCII-files. And you can use any layout as long a this rule is followed:

All words are separated by at least one whitespace character!

Well, in Forth everything is a word or becoming a word. Yes, even ’\’ and ’(’ are words! And you can add
all the empty lines or spaces or tabs you like, Forth won’t care and your harddisk supplier either.

However, some Forths still use a special line editor, which works with screens. Screens are usually 1K
blocks, divided into 16 lines of 64 characters. Explaining how these kind of editors work goes beyond the
scope of this manual. You have to check the documentation of your Forth compiler on that. The files these
editors produce are called blockfiles.

14

CHAPTER2. FORTHFUNDAMENTALS

2.8 Displaying string constants

Displaying a string is as easy as adding comment. Let’s say you want to make the ultimate program, one
that is displaying "Hello world!". Well, that’s almost the entire program. The famous ’hello world’ program
is simply this in Forth:

.( Hello world!)

Enter this and it works. Yes, that’s it! No declaration that this is the main function and it is beginning here
and ending there. May be you think it looks funny on the display. Well, you can add a carriage return by
adding the word ’CR’. So now it looks like:

.( Hello world!) cr

Still pretty simple, huh?

2.9 Declaring variables

One time or another you’re going to need variables. Declaring a variable is easy.

variable one

The same rules for declaring words apply for variables. You can’t use a name that already has been taken
or you’ll get pretty strange results. A variable is a word too! And whitespace characters are not allowed.
Note that Forth is usually not case-sensitive!

2.10 Using variables

Of course variables are of little use when you can’t assign values to them. This assigns the number 6 to
variable ’ONE’:

6 one !

We don’t call ’!’ bang or something like that, we call it ’store’. Of course you don’t have to put a number
on the stack to use it, you can use a number that is already on the stack. To retrieve the value stored in
’ONE’ we use:

one @

The word ’@’ is called ’fetch’ and it puts the number stored in ’one’ on the stack. To display it you use ’.’:

one @ .

There is a shortcut for that, the word ’?’, which will fetch the number stored in ’ONE’ and displays it:

one ?

2.11. BUILT-INVARIABLES

2.11 Built-in variables

15

Forth has two built-in variables you can use for your own purposes. They are called ’BASE’ and ’>IN’.
’BASE’ controls the radix at run-time, ’>IN’ is used by ’WORD’ and ’PARSE’.

2.12 What is a cell?

A cell is simply the space a number takes up. So the size of a variable is one cell. The size of a cell is
important since it determines the range Forth can handle. We’ll come to that further on.

2.13 Declaring and using constants

Declaring a simple constant is easy too. Let’s say we want to make a constant called ’FIVE’:

5 constant five

Now you can use ’FIVE’ like you would ’5’. E.g. this will print five spaces:

five spaces

The same rules for declaring words apply for constants. You shouldn’t use a name that already has been
taken. A constant is a word too! And whitespace characters are not allowed. Note that Forth is usually not
case-sensitive.

2.14 Built-in constants

There are several built-in constants. Of course, they are all literals in case you wonder. Here’s a list. Refer
to the glossary for a more detailed description:

1. BL

2. FALSE

3. PAD

4. TIB

5. TRUE

2.15 Using booleans

Booleans are expressions or values that are either true or false. They are used to conditionally execute parts
of your program. In Forth a value is false when it is zero and true when it is non-zero. Most booleans come
into existence when you do comparisons. This one will determine whether the value in variable ’VAR’ is
greater than 5. Try to predict whether it will evaluate to true or false:

variable var
4 var !
var @ 5 > .

No, it wasn’t! But hey, you can print booleans as numbers. Well, they are numbers. But with a special
meaning as we will see in the next section.

16

CHAPTER2. FORTHFUNDAMENTALS

2.16

IF-ELSE constructs

Like most other languages you can use IF-ELSE constructs. Let’s enhance our previous example:

variable var
4 var !

: test

var @ 5 >
if ." Greater" cr
else ." Less or equal" cr
then

;

test

So now our program does the job. It tells you when it’s greater and when not. Note that contrary to other
languages the condition comes before the ’IF’ and ’THEN’ ends the IF-clause. In other words, whatever
path the program takes, it always continues after the ’THEN’. A tip: think of ’THEN’ as ’ENDIF’..

2.17 FOR-NEXT constructs

Forth does also have FOR-NEXT constructs. The number of iterations is known in this construct. E.g. let’s
print the numbers from 1 to 10:

: test

11 1 do i . cr loop

;

test

The first number presents the limit. When the limit is goes beyond the limit minus one the loop terminates.
The second number presents the initial value of the index. That’s where it starts of. So remember, this loop
iterates at least once! You can use ’?DO’ instead of ’DO’. That will not enter the loop if the limit and the
index are the same to begin with:

: test

0 0 ?do i . cr loop

;

test

’I’ represents the index. It is not a variable or a constant, it is a predefined word, which puts the index on
the stack, so ’.’ can get it from the stack and print it.

But what if I want to increase the index by two? Or want to count downwards? Is that possible. Sure.
There is another construct to do just that. Okay, let’s take the first question:

: test

11 1 do i . cr 2 +loop

;

test

2.18. WHILE-DOCONSTRUCTS

17

This one will produce exactly what you asked for. An increment by two. This one will produce all negative
numbers from -1 to -11:

: test

-11 -1 do i . cr -1 +loop

;

test

Why -11? Because the loop terminates when it reached the limit minus one. And when you’re counting
downward, that is -11. You can change the step if you want to, e.g.:

: test

32767 1 do i . i +loop

;

test

This will print: 1, 2, 4, 8, all up to 16384. Pretty flexible, I guess. You can break out of a loop by using
’LEAVE’:

: test

10 0 do i dup 5 = if drop leave else . cr then loop

:

test

2.18 WHILE-DO constructs

A WHILE-DO construction is a construction that will perform zero or more iterations. First a condition is
checked, then the body is executed. Then it will branch back to the condition. In Forth it looks like this:

BEGIN <condition> WHILE <body> REPEAT

The condition will have to evaluate to TRUE in order to execute the body. If it evaluates to FALSE it
branches to just after the REPEAT. This example does a Fibbonaci test.

: fib 0 1

begin

while

dup >r rot dup r> >

\ condition

rot rot dup rot + dup .

\ body

repeat
drop drop drop ;

\ after loop has executed

You might not understand all of the commands, but we’ll get to that. If you enter "20 fib" you will get:

1 2 3 5 8 13 21

This construct is particularly handy if you are not sure that all data will pass the condition.

18

CHAPTER2. FORTHFUNDAMENTALS

2.19 REPEAT-UNTIL constructs

The counterpart of WHILE-DO constructs is the REPEAT-UNTIL construct. This executes the body, then
checks a condition at ’UNTIL’. If the expression evaluates to FALSE, it branches back to the top of the
body (marked by ’BEGIN’) again. It executes at least once. This program calculates the largest common
divisor.

: lcd

begin

swap over mod
dup 0=

until drop . ;

\ body
\ condition

If you enter "27 21 lcd" the programs will answer "3".

2.20

Infinite loops

In order to make an infinite loop one could write:

: test

begin ." Diamonds are forever" cr 0 until

;

test

But there is a nicer way to do just that:

: test

begin ." Diamonds are forever" cr again

;

test

This will execute until the end of times, unless you exit the program another way.

2.21 Getting a number from the keyboard

Let’s start with "you’re not supposed to understand this". If you dig deeper in Forth you’ll find out why
it works the way it works. But if you define this word in your program it will read a number from the
keyboard and put it on the stack. If you haven’t entered a valid number, it will prompt you again.

S" MAX-N" ENVIRONMENT?
[IF]
NEGATE 1- CONSTANT (ERROR)
[THEN]

\ query environment
\ if successful
\ create constant (ERROR)

: number

( a -- n)

0. Rot dup 1+ c@ [char] - = >r count r@ if 1 /string then >number nip

2.22. ALIGNINGNUMBERS

19

0= if d>s r> if negate then else r> drop 2drop (error) then ;

:

input#
begin

refill drop bl word number
dup (error) <>
dup 0=
if swap drop then

until ;

( -- n)

( n)
( n f)
( n f -f)
( f | n f)

2.22 Aligning numbers

You may find that printing numbers in columns (I prefer "right-aligned") can be pretty hard. That is because
the standard word to print numbers (’.’) prints the number and then a trailing space. That is why ’.R’ was
added.

The word ’.R’ works just like ’.’ but instead of just printing the number with a trailing space ’.R’ will print
the number right-aligned in a field of N characters wide. Try this and you will see the difference:

140 . cr
150 5 .r cr

In this example the field is five characters wide, so ’150’ will be printed with two leading spaces.

20

CHAPTER2. FORTHFUNDAMENTALS

Chapter 3

Arrays and strings

3.1 Declaring arrays of numbers

You can make arrays of numbers very easily. It is very much like making a variable. Let’s say we want an
array of 16 numbers:

create sixteen 16 cells allot

That’s it, we’re done!

3.2 Using arrays of numbers

You can use arrays of numbers just like variables. The array cells are numbered from 0 to N, N being the
size of the array minus one. Storing a value in the 0th cell is easy. It works just like a simple variable:

5 sixteen 0 cells + !

Which will store ’5’ in the 0th cell. So storing ’7’ in the 8th cell

is done like this:

7 sixteen 8 cells + !

Isn’t Forth wonderful? Fetching is done the same of course:

sixteen 0 cells + @
sixteen 4 cells + @

Plain and easy.

3.3 Creating arrays of constants

Making an array of constants is quite easy. First you have to define the name of the array by using the word
’CREATE. Then you specify all its elements. All elements (even the last) are terminated by the word ’,’.
An example:

create sizes 18 , 21 , 24 , 27 , 30 , 255 ,

Please note that ’,’ is a word! It has to be separated by spaces on both ends.

21

22

CHAPTER3. ARRAYSANDSTRINGS

3.4 Using arrays of constants

Accessing an array of constants is exactly like accessing an array of numbers. In an array of numbers you
access the 0th element like this:

sixteen 0 cells + @

When you access the first element of an array of constants you use this construction:

sizes 0 cells + @

So I don’t think you’ll have any problems here.

3.5 Creating strings

In Forth you have to define the maximum length of the string, like Pascal:

create name 10 chars allot

Note that the string variable includes the count byte. That is a special character that tells Forth how long a
string is. You usually don’t have to add that yourself because Forth will do that for you. But you will have
to reserve space for it.

That means that the string "name" we just declared can contain up to nine characters *AND* the count
byte. These kind of strings are usually referred to as counted strings.

E.g. when you want to define a string that has to contain "Hello!" (without the quotes) you have to define
a string that is at least 7 characters long:

create hello 7 chars allot

When you later refer to the string you just defined its address is thrown on the stack. An address is simply a
number that refers to its location. As you will see you can work with string-addresses without ever knowing
what that number is. But because it is a number you can manipulate it like any other number. E.g. this is
perfectly valid:

hello
dup
drop drop

\ address of string on stack
\ duplicate it
\ drop them both

In the next section we will tell you how to get "Hello!" into the string.

3.6

Initializing strings

You can initialize a string with the ’S"’ word. You haven’t seen this one yet, but we will discuss it in more
depth later on. If you want the string to contain your first name use this construction:

3.7. GETTINGTHELENGTHOFASTRING

23

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;

create name 16 chars allot
s" Hello! " name place

The word ”PLACE”, which is a common word1, copies the contents of a string constant into a string-
variable. If you still don’t understand it yet, don’t worry. As long as you use this construction, you’ll get
what you want. Just remember that assigning a string constant to a string that is too short will result in an
error or even worse, corrupt other strings.

3.7 Getting the length of a string

You get the length of a string by using the word ’COUNT’. It will not only return the length of the string,
but also the string address. It is illustrated by this short program:

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;

create greeting 32 chars allot
S" Hello!" greeting place
greeting count
.( String length: ) . cr
drop

\ define string greeting
\ set string to ’Hello!’
\ get string length
\ print the length
\ discard the address

You usually have nothing to do with the string address. However, it may be required by other words like
we will see in the following section. If you just want the bare length of the string you can always define a
word like ’length$’:

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;
: length$ count swap drop ;

create greeting 32 cells allot
s" Hello!" greeting place
greeting length$
.( String length: ) . cr

\ define string greeting
\ set string to ’Hello!’
\ get string length
\ print the length

3.8 Printing a string variable

Printing a string variable is pretty straight forward. The word that is required to print a string variable is
’TYPE’. It requires the string address and the number of characters it has to print. Yes, that are the values
that are left on the stack by ’COUNT’! So printing a string means issuing both ’COUNT’ and ’TYPE’:

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;

create greeting 32 cells allot
s" Hello!" greeting place
greeting count type cr

\ define string greeting
\ set string to ’Hello!’
\ print the string

If you don’t like this you can always define a word like ’PRINT$’:

1Although not part of the ANS-Forth standard.

24

CHAPTER3. ARRAYSANDSTRINGS

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;
: print$ count type ;

create greeting 32 cells allot
s" Hello!" greeting place
greeting print$ cr

\ define string greeting
\ set string to ’Hello!’
\ print the string

3.9 Copying a string variable

You might want to copy one string variable to another. There is a special word for that, named ’CMOVE’.
It takes the two strings and copies a given number of characters from the source to the destination. Let’s
take a look at this example:

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;

create one 16 chars allot
create two 16 chars allot

\ define the first string
\ define the second string

s" Greetings!" one place
one dup
count
1+
swap drop
two swap
cmove
two count type cr

\ initialize string one
\ save the real address
\ get the length of string one
\ account for the count byte
\ get the real address
\ get the order right
\ copy the string
\ print string two

The most difficult part to understand is probably why and how to set up the data for ’CMOVE’. Well,
’CMOVE’ wants to see these values on the stack:

source destination #chars

With the expression:

one count

We get these data on the stack:

source+1 length

But the count byte hasn’t been accounted for so far. That’s why we add:

1+

So now this parameter has the right value. Now we have to restore the true address of the string and tell
’CMOVE’ where to copy the contents of string one to. Initially, we got the correct address. That is why
we saved it using:

dup

3.10. SLICINGSTRINGS

25

Now we’re getting rid of the "corrupted" address by issuing:

swap drop

This is what we got right now:

source #chars

If we simply add:

two

The data is still not presented in the right order:

source #chars destination

So we add the extra ’SWAP’ in order to get it right. Of course you may define a word that takes care of all
that:

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;
: copy$ swap dup count 1+ swap drop rot swap cmove ;

create one 32 chars allot
create two 32 chars allot
s" Greetings!" one place
one two copy$

You may wonder why we keep on defining words to make your life easier. Why didn’t we simply define
these words in the compiler instead of using these hard to understand words? Sure, but I didn’t write the
standard. However, most Forths allow you to permanently store these words in their vocabulary. Check
your documentation for details.

3.10 Slicing strings

Slicing strings is just like copying strings. We just don’t copy all of it and we don’t always start copying at
the beginning of a string. We’ll show you what we mean:

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;
: nextchar dup dup c@ 1- swap char+ c! char+ ;

create one 32 chars allot
s" Hans Bezemer" one place
one dup count type cr
nextchar
dup count type cr
nextchar
dup count type cr
nextchar
count type cr

\ define string one
\ initialize string one
\ duplicate and print it
\ move one character forward
\ duplicate and print it again
\ move one character forward
\ duplicate and print it again
\ move one character forward
\ print it for the last time

26

CHAPTER3. ARRAYSANDSTRINGS

First it will print "Hans Bezemer", then "ans Bezemer", then "ns Bezemer" and finally "s Bezemer". The
word CHAR+ is usually equivalent to 1+, but Forth was defined to run on unusual hardware too - the CPU
of a pocket calculator could be a nibble-machine (4-bit) so each CHAR occupies in fact two addresses.
And of course, some Forth systems may treat CHAR to be a 16-bit unicode. If we want to discard the first
name at all we could even write:

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;

create one 32 chars allot
s" Hans Bezemer" one place
one dup c@ 5 -
swap 5 chars + dup rot swap c!
count type cr

\ define string one
\ initialize string one
\ copy address and get count
\ save new count
\ print sliced string

The five characters we want to skip are the first name (which is four characters) and a space (which adds
up to five). There is no special word for slicing strings. There is a smarter way to handle strings in Forth,
which we will discuss later on. But if you desperately need slicing you might want to use a word like this.
It works just like ’CMOVE’ with an extra parameter:

: slice$

swap
over over
>r >r >r >r
+
r> r>
char+
swap cmove
r> r>
c!

;

\ reverse dest and #chars
\ copy the dest and #chars
\ store on the return stack
\ make address to the source
\ restore dest and #chars
\ make address to destination
\ copy the string
\ restore dest and #chars
\ save

This is another example of "you’re not supposed to understand this". You call it with:

source index-to-source destination #chars

The index-to-source starts counting at one. So this will copy the first name to string "two" and print it:

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;

: slice$

swap
over over
>r >r >r >r
+
r> r>
char+
swap cmove
r> r>
c!

;

\ reverse dest and #chars
\ copy the dest and #chars
\ store on the return stack
\ make address to the source
\ restore dest and #chars
\ make address to destination
\ copy the string
\ restore dest and #chars
\ save

create one 32 chars allot

\ declare string one

3.11. APPENDINGSTRINGS

27

create two 32 chars allot
s" Hans Bezemer" one place
one 1 two 4 slice$
two count type cr

\ declare string two
\ initialize string one
\ slice the first name
\ print string two

This will slice the last name off and store it in string "two":

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;

: slice$

swap
over over
>r >r >r >r
+
r> r>
char+
swap cmove
r> r>
c!

;

\ reverse dest and #chars
\ copy the dest and #chars
\ store on the return stack
\ make address to the source
\ restore dest and #chars
\ make address to destination
\ copy the string
\ restore dest and #chars
\ save

create one 32 chars allot
create two 32 chars allot
s" Hans Bezemer" one place
one 6 two 7 slice$
two count type cr

\ declare string one
\ declare string two
\ initialize string one
\ slice the first name
\ print string two

Since the last name is seven characters long and starts at position six (start counting with one!). Although
this is very "Basic" way to slice strings, we can do this kind of string processing the Forth way. It will
probably require less stack manipulations.

3.11 Appending strings

There is no standard word in Forth to concatenate strings. As a matter of fact, string manipulation is one of
Forths weakest points. But since we are focused here on doing things, we will present you a word which
will get the work done.

The word ’APPEND’ appends two strings. In this example string "one" holds the first name and ”Bezemer”
is appended to string "one" to form the full name. Finally string "one" is printed.

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;

: append

over over
>r >r
count chars +
swap chars move
r> r>
dup >r
c@ +
r> c!

;

( a1 n2 a2 --)
\ duplicate target and count
\ save them on the return stack
\ calculate offset target
\ now move the source string
\ get target and count
\ duplicate target and save one
\ calculate new count
\ get address and store

28

CHAPTER3. ARRAYSANDSTRINGS

create one 32 chars allot
s" Hans " one place
s" Bezemer" one append
one count type cr

\ define string one
\ initialize first string
\ append ’Bezemer’ to string
\ print first string

Of course, you can also fetch the string to be appended from a string variable by using ’COUNT’.

3.12 Comparing strings

If you ever sorted strings you know how indispensable comparing strings is. As we mentioned before, there
are very few words in Forth that act on strings. But here is a word that can compare two strings.

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;

create one 32 chars allot
create two 32 chars allot

\ define string one
\ define string two

: test

s" H. Bezemer" one place
s" R. Bezemer" two place

\ initialize string one
\ initialize string two

one count two count compare
if

\ compare two strings

." Strings differ"

\ message: strings ok

else

." Strings are the same"

\ message: strings not ok

then
cr

;

test

\ send CR

Simply pass two strings to ’COMPARE’ and it will return a TRUE flag when the strings are different. This
might seem a bit odd, but strcmp() does exactly the same. If you don’t like that you can always add ’0=’ to
the end of ’COMPARE’ to reverse the flag.

3.13 Removing trailing spaces

You probably know the problem. The user of your well-made program types his name and hits the spacebar
before hitting the enter-key. There you go. His name will be stored in your datafile with a space and nobody
will ever find it.

In Forth there is a special word called ’-TRAILING’ that removes the extra spaces at the end with very
little effort. Just paste it after ’COUNT’. Like we did in this example:

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;

create one 32 chars allot
s" Hans Bezemer

"

\ define a string
\ string with trailing spaces

3.14. STRINGCONSTANTSANDSTRINGVARIABLES

29

one place

one dup

." ["
count type
." ]" cr

\ now copy it to string one

\ save the address

\ print a bracket
\ old method of printing
\ print bracket and newline

." ["
count -trailing type
." ]" cr

\ print a bracket
\ new method of printing
\ print a bracket and newline

You will see that the string is printed twice. First with the trailing spaces, second without trailing spaces.
And what about leading spaces? Patience, old chap. You’ve got a lot of ground to cover.

3.14 String constants and string variables

Most computer languages allow you to mix string constants and string variables. Not in Forth. In Forth
they are two distinct datatypes. To print a string constant you use the word ’."’. To print a string variable
you use the ’COUNT TYPE’ construction.

There are only two different actions you can do with a string constant. First, you can define one using ’s"’.
Second, you can print one using ’."’.

There are two different ways to represent a string variable in Forth. First, by using just its address, the
so-called counted string. Forth relies on the count byte to find the end of the string. Second, by using its
address and its length. This requires two values.

The word ’TYPE’ requires the latter form. Therefore, you have to convert a counted string in order to print
it. You can convert an counted string to an "address-count string" with the word ’COUNT’. If you moved
a string (by using ’CMOVE’) without taking the count byte into account you have to set it yourself.

This may seem a bit mind-boggling to you now, but we’ll elaborate a bit further on this subject in the
following sections.

3.15 The count byte

The count byte is used to set the length of a counted string. It has nothing to do with British royalty! It is
simply the very first byte of a string, containing the length of the actual string following it.

3.16 Printing individual characters

"I already know that!"

Sure you do. If you want to print "G" you simply write:

.( G)

Don’t you? But what if you want to use a TAB character (ASCII 9)? You can’t type in that one so easily,
huh? You may even find it doesn’t work at all!

Don’t ever use characters outside the ASCII range 32 to 127 decimal. It may or may not work, but it won’t
be portable anyway. the word ’EMIT’ may be of some help. If you want to use the TAB-character simply
write:

CHAPTER3. ARRAYSANDSTRINGS

30

9 emit

That works!

3.17 Getting ASCII values

Ok, ’EMIT’ is a nice addition, but it has its drawbacks. What if you want to emit the character "G". Do
you have to look up the ASCII value in a table? No. Forth has another word that can help you with that. It
is called ’CHAR’. This will emit a "G":

char G emit

The word ’CHAR’ looks up the ASCII-value of "G" and leave it on the stack. Note that ’CHAR’ only
works with printable characters (ASCII 33 to 127 decimal).

3.18 When to use [CHAR] or CHAR

There is not one, but two words for getting the ASCII code of a character, ’[CHAR]’ and ’CHAR’. Why
is that? Well, the complete story is somewhat complex, but one is for use inside colon definitions and one
is for use outside colon definitions. And ’CHAR’ isn’t the only word which is affected. We’ve put it all
together in a neat table for you:

INSIDE A DEFINITION OUTSIDE A DEFINITION
.(
.”
CHAR
[CHAR]
’
[’]

For example, this produces the same results:

: Hello ." Hello world" [char] ! emit cr ; Hello
.( Hello world!) char ! emit cr

You should also have noticed in the meanwhile that you can’t use control structures like DO..LOOP or
IF..THEN outside colon definitions. And not only these, others like ’C”” can’t be used as well. Real Forth-
ers call this ”inside a colon definition” thing compilation mode and working from the prompt interpretation
mode. You can do really neat things with it, but that is still beyond you now.

3.19 Printing spaces

If you try to print a space by using this construction:

char

emit

You will notice it won’t work. Sure, you can also use:

.(

)

3.20. FETCHINGINDIVIDUALCHARACTERS

31

But that isn’t too elegant. You can use the built-in constant ’BL’ which holds the ASCII-value of a space:

bl emit

That is much better. But you can achieve the same thing by simply writing:

space

Which means that if you want to write two spaces you have to write:

space space

If you want to write ten spaces you either have to repeat the command ’SPACE’ ten times or use a DO-
LOOP construction, which is a bit cumbersome. Of course, Forth has a more elegant solution for that:

10 spaces

Which will output ten spaces. Need I say more?

3.20 Fetching individual characters

Take a look at this small program:

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;

create one 32 chars allot
s" Hans" one place

\ define string one
\ initialize string one

What is the second character of string "one"? Sure, its an "a". But how can you let your program determine
that? You can’t use ’@’ because that word can only access variables.

Sure, you can do that in Forth, but it requires a new word, called ’C@’. Think of a string as an array of
characters and you will find it much easier to picture the idea. Arrays in Forth always start with zero instead
of one, but that is the count byte. So accessing the first character might be done with:

one 1 chars + c@

This is the complete program:

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;

create one 32 chars allot
s" Hans" one place
one 2 chars + c@
emit cr

\ define string one
\ initialize string one
\ get the second character
\ print it

32

CHAPTER3. ARRAYSANDSTRINGS

3.21 Storing individual characters

Storing individual characters works just the same. Keep that array of characters in mind. When we want to
fetch a variable we write:

my_var @

When we want to store a value in a variable we write:

5 my_var !

Fetching only requires the address of the variable. Storing requires both the address of the variable *AND*
the value we want to store. On top of the stack is the address of the variable, below that is value we want
to store. Keep that in mind, this is very important. Let’s say we have this program:

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;

create one 32 chars allot
s" Hans" one place

\ define string one
\ initialize string one

Now we want to change "Hans" to "Hand". If we want to find out what the 4th character of string "one" is
we write:

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;

create one 32 chars allot
s" Hans" one place
one 4 chars + c@

\ define string one
\ initialize string one
\ get the fourth character

Remember, we start counting from one! If we want to store the character "d" in the fourth character, we
have to use a new word, and (yes, you guessed it right!) it is called ’C!’:

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;

create one 32 chars allot
s" Hans" one place
one 4 chars +
char d
swap
c!

\ define string one
\ initialize string one
\ address of the fourth char
\ we want to store ’d’
\ get the order right
\ now store ’d’

If we throw the character "d" on the stack before we calculate the address, we can even remove the ’SWAP’:

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;

create one 32 chars allot
char d
s" Hans" one place
one 4 chars +
c!

\ define string one
\ we want to store ’d’
\ initialize string one
\ address of the fourth char
\ now store ’d’

3.22. GETTINGASTRINGFROMTHEKEYBOARD

33

We will present the very same programs, but now with stack-effect-diagrams in order to explain how this
works. We will call the index ’i’, the character we want to store ’c’ and the address of the string ’a’. By
convention, stack-effect-diagrams are enclosed by parenthesis.

If you create complex programs this technique can help you to understand more clearly how your program
actually works. It might even save you a lot of debugging. This is the first version:

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;

create one 32 chars allot
s" Hans" one place
one
4 chars
+
char d
swap
c!

( --)
( --)
( a)
( a i)
( a+i)
( a+i c)
( c a+i)
( --)

Now the second, optimized version:

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;

create one 32 chars allot
char d
s" Hans" one place
one
4 chars
+
c!

( --)
( c)
( c)
( c a)
( c a i)
( c a+i)
( --)

3.22 Getting a string from the keyboard

Of course, you don’t want to initialize strings all your life. Real applications get their input from the
keyboard. We’ve already shown you how to get a number from the keyboard. Now we turn to strings.

When programming in BASIC, strings usually have an undefined length. Some BASICs move strings
around in memory, others have to perform some kind of "garbage-collection". Whatever method they use,
it takes up memory and processor-time.

Forth forces you to think about your application. E.g. when you want to store somebodies name in a string
variable, 16 characters will be too few and 256 characters too many. But 64 characters will probably do.

But that poses a problem when you want to get a string from the keyboard. How can you prevent that
somebody types a string that is just too long?

The word ’ACCEPT’ takes two arguments. First, the string variable where you want to save the input and
second, the maximum number of characters it can take. But there is a catch. This program can get you into
trouble:

64 constant #name
create name #name chars allot

\ length of string
\ define string ’name’

name #name accept
name 1+ swap type cr

\ input string
\ swap count and print

34

CHAPTER3. ARRAYSANDSTRINGS

Since 64 characters *PLUS* the count byte add up to 65 characters. You will probably want to use this
definition instead:

: saccept 1- swap 1+ swap accept ; \ define safe ’ACCEPT’

64 constant #name
create name #name chars allot

\ length of string
\ define string ’name’

name #name saccept
name 1+ swap type cr

\ input string
\ print string

This "safe" version decrements the count so the user input will fit nicely into the string variable. In order
to terminate it you write:

: saccept 1- swap 1+ swap accept ; \ define safe ’ACCEPT’

64 constant #name
create name #name chars allot

\ length of string
\ define string ’name’

name dup #name saccept
swap c!

\ input string
\ set count byte

The word ’ACCEPT’ always returns the number of characters it received. This is the end of the second
level. Now you should be able to understand most of the example programs and write simple ones. I
suggest you do just that. Experience is the best teacher after all.

3.23 What is the TIB?

The TIB stands for "Terminal Input Buffer" and is used by one single, but very important word called
’REFILL’. In essence, ’REFILL’ does the same thing as ’ACCEPT’, except that it has a dedicated area to
store its data and sets up everything for parsing. Whatever you type when you call ’REFILL’, it is stored
in the TIB.

3.24 What is the PAD?

The PAD is short for "scratch-pad". It is a temporary storage area for strings. It is heavily used by Forth
itself, e.g. when you print a number the string is formed in the PAD. Yes, that’s right: when you print
a number it is first converted to a string. Then that string is ’COUNT’ed and ’TYPE’d. You can even
program that subsystem yourself as we will see when we encounter formatted numbers.

3.25 How do I use TIB and PAD?

In general, you don’t. The TIB is a system-related area and it is considered bad practice when you ma-
nipulate it yourself. The PAD can be used for temporary storage, but beware! Temporary really means
temporary. A few words at the most, provided you don’t generate any output or do any parsing.

Think of both these areas as predefined strings. You can refer to them as ’TIB’ and ’PAD’. You don’t have
to declare them in any way. This program is perfectly alright:

3.26. TEMPORARYSTRINGCONSTANTS

35

: place over over >r >r char+ swap chars cmove r> r> c! ;

s" Hello world" pad place
pad count type cr

\ store a string in pad
\ print contents of the pad

3.26 Temporary string constants

Hey, haven’t we already seen this? Yes, you have.

s" This is a string" type cr

No ’COUNT’? No. ’S"’ leaves its address and its length on the stack, so we can call ’TYPE’ right away.
Note that this string doesn’t last forever. If you wait too long it will be overwritten. It depends on your
system how long the string will last.

3.27 Simple parsing

We have already discussed ’REFILL’ a bit. We’ve seen that it is closely related to ’ACCEPT’. ’REFILL’
returns a true flag if all is well. When you use the keyboard it usually is, so we can safely drop it, but we
will encounter a situation where this flag comes in handy. If you want to get a string from the keyboard,
you only have to type:

refill drop

\ get string from keyboard

Every next call to ’REFILL’ will overwrite any previously entered string. So if you want to do something
with that string you’ve got to get it out of there, usually to one of your own strings.

But if accessing the TIB directly is not the proper way, what is? The use of ’REFILL’ is closely linked to
the word ’WORD’, which is a parser. ’WORD’ looks for the delimiter, whose ASCII code is on the stack.

If the string starts with the delimiter, it will skip this and all subsequent occurrences until it finds a string.
Then it will look for the delimiter again and slice the string right there. It then copies the sliced string to
PAD and returns its address. This extremely handy when you want to obtain filtered input. E.g. when you
want to split somebodies name into first name, initials and lastname:

Hans L. Bezemer

Just use this program:

: test

." Give first name, initials, lastname: "
refill drop
bl word
." First name: "
count type cr
bl word
." Initials
count type cr
bl word
." Last name : "

\ get string from keyboard
\ parse first name
\ write message
\ type first name
\ parse initials
\ write message
\ type initials
\ parse last name
\ write message

: "

36

CHAPTER3. ARRAYSANDSTRINGS

count type cr

\ write last name

;

test

You don’t have to parse the entire string with the same character. This program will split up an MS-DOS
filename into its components:

: test

." DOS filename: " refill
drop cr

\ input a DOS filename
\ get rid of the flag

[char] : word
." Drive: " count type ." :" cr

\ parse drive

begin

while

[char] \ word
dup count 0<>

\ print drive

\ parse path
\ if not a NULL string
\ print path

drop ." Path : " count type cr

repeat
drop drop

\ parse again
\ discard addresses

;

test

If ’WORD’ reaches the end of the string and the delimiter is still not found, it returns the remainder of that
string. If you try to parse beyond the end of the string, it returns a NULL string. That is an empty string or,
in other words, a string with length zero.

Therefore, we checked whether the string had zero length. If it had, we had reached the end of the string
and further parsing was deemed useless.

3.28 Converting a string to a number

We now learned how to parse strings and retrieve components from them. But what if these components are
numbers? Well, there is a way in Forth to convert a string to a number, but like every number-conversion
routine it has to act on invalid strings. That is, strings that cannot be converted to a valid number.

This implementation uses an internal error-value, called ’(ERROR)’. The constant ’(ERROR)’ is a strange
number. You can’t negate it, you can’t subtract any number from it and you can’t print it. If ’NUMBER’
can’t convert a string it returns that constant. Forth has its own conversion word called ’>NUMBER’, but
that is a lot harder to use. Let’s take a look at this program:

S" MAX-N" ENVIRONMENT?
[IF]
NEGATE 1- CONSTANT (ERROR)
[THEN]

\ query environment
\ if successful
\ create constant (ERROR)

: number 0. Rot dup 1+ c@ [char] - = >r count r@ if 1 /string
then >number nip 0= if d>s r> if negate then else r> drop
2drop (error) then ;

3.29. CONTROLLINGTHERADIX

37

: test

." Enter a number: "
refill drop
bl word
number dup
(error) =
if

\ write prompt
\ enter string
\ parse string
\ convert to a number
\ test for valid number
\ if not valid

." You didn’t enter a valid number!" drop cr

\ print if valid

." The number was: " . cr

else

then

;

test

You first enter a string, then it parsed and ’WORD’ returns the address where that string is stored. ’NUM-
BER’ tries to convert it. If ’NUMBER’ returns ’(ERROR)’ it wasn’t a valid string. Otherwise, the number
it right on the stack, waiting to be printed. That wasn’t so hard, was it?

3.29 Controlling the radix

If you are a programmer, you know how important this subject is to you. Sometimes, you want to print
numbers in octal, binary or hex. Forth can do that too. Let’s take the previous program and alter it a bit:

S" MAX-N" ENVIRONMENT?
[IF]
NEGATE 1- CONSTANT (ERROR)
[THEN]

\ query environment
\ if successful
\ create constant (ERROR)

: number 0. Rot dup 1+ c@ [char] - = >r count r@ if 1 /string
then >number nip 0= if d>s r> if negate then else r> drop
2drop (error) then ;

: test

." Enter a number: "
refill drop
bl word
number dup
(error) =
if

\ write prompt
\ enter string
\ parse string
\ convert to a number
\ test for valid number
\ if not valid

." You didn’t enter a valid number!" drop cr

\ print if valid

hex
." The number was: " . cr

else

then

;

test

We added the word ’HEX’ just before printing the number. Now the number will be printed in hexadecimal.
Forth has a number of words that can change the radix, like ’DECIMAL’ and ’OCTAL’. They work in the
same way as ’HEX’.

38

CHAPTER3. ARRAYSANDSTRINGS

Forth always starts in decimal. After that you are responsible. Note that all radix control follows the flow
of the program. If you call a self-defined word that alters the radix all subsequent conversion is done too in
that radix:

S" MAX-N" ENVIRONMENT?
[IF]
NEGATE 1- CONSTANT (ERROR)
[THEN]

\ query environment
\ if successful
\ create constant (ERROR)

: number 0. Rot dup 1+ c@ [char] - = >r count r@ if 1 /string
then >number nip 0= if d>s r> if negate then else r> drop
2drop (error) then ;

: .hex hex . ;

\ print a number in hex

: test

." Enter a number: "
refill drop
bl word
number dup
(error) =
if

\ write prompt
\ enter string
\ parse string
\ convert to a number
\ test for valid number
\ if not valid

." You didn’t enter a valid number!" drop cr

else

\ print if valid

." The number was: " .hex cr

then

;

test

In this example not only that single number is printed in hex, but also all subsequent numbers will be
printed in hex! A better version of the ".HEX" definition would be:

: .hex hex . decimal ;

Since that one resets the radix back to decimal. Words like ’HEX’ do not only control the output of a
number, but the input of numbers is also affected:

S" MAX-N" ENVIRONMENT?
[IF]
NEGATE 1- CONSTANT (ERROR)
[THEN]

\ query environment
\ if successful
\ create constant (ERROR)

: number 0. Rot dup 1+ c@ [char] - = >r count r@ if 1 /string
then >number nip 0= if d>s r> if negate then else r> drop
2drop (error) then ;

: test

." Enter a number: "
refill drop
bl word
hex

\ write prompt
\ enter string
\ parse string
\ convert hexadecimal

3.29. CONTROLLINGTHERADIX

39

number dup
(error) =
if

\ convert to a number
\ test for valid number
\ if not valid

." You didn’t enter a valid number!" drop cr

else

\ print if valid

dup
." The number was: " decimal . ." decimal" cr
." The number was: " hex . ." hex" cr

then

;

test

’NUMBER’ will now also accept hexadecimal numbers. If the number is not a valid hexadecimal number,
it will return ’(ERROR)’. You probably know there is more to radix control than ’OCTAL’, ’HEX’ and
’DECIMAL’. No, we have not forgotten them. In fact, you can choose any radix between 2 and 36. This
slightly modified program will only accept binary numbers:

S" MAX-N" ENVIRONMENT?
[IF]
NEGATE 1- CONSTANT (ERROR)
[THEN]

\ query environment
\ if successful
\ create constant (ERROR)

: number 0. Rot dup 1+ c@ [char] - = >r count r@ if 1 /string
then >number nip 0= if d>s r> if negate then else r> drop
2drop (error) then ;

: binary 2 base ! ;

: test

." Enter a number: "
refill drop
bl word
binary
number dup
(error) =
if

\ write prompt
\ enter string
\ parse string
\ convert hexadecimal
\ convert to a number
\ test for valid number
\ if not valid

." You didn’t enter a valid number!" drop cr

else

dup
." The number was: " decimal . ." decimal" cr
." The number was: " hex . ." hex" cr

\ print if valid
\ both decimal and hex

then

;

test

’BASE’ is a predefined variable that enables you to select any radix between 2 and 36. This makes Forth
very flexible:

hex 02B decimal . cr

However, this won’t work:

40

CHAPTER3. ARRAYSANDSTRINGS

: wont-work hex 02B decimal . cr ;

But this will:

hex
: will-work 02B decimal . cr ;

Why that? Well, ’HEX’ will just be compiled, not executed. So when Forth tries to compile ”02B”, it
doesn’t recognize it as a hexadecimal number and will try to find word ’02B’. Which it can’t of course.
Note that after ”WILL-WORK” has been compiled all numbers following it will stuill be compiled as
hexadecimal numbers. Why? Because ’DECIMAL’ is compiled too! You should place a ’DECIMAL’
outside the definition in order to reset the radix. BTW, it is always a good idea to add a leading zero to a
hexadecimal number. For example, is this a hex number or a word:

face

3.30 Pictured numeric output

You probably have used this before, like when writing Basic. Never heard of "PRINT USING.."? Well, it
is a way to print numbers in a certain format. Like telephone-numbers, time, dates, etc. Of course Forth
can do this too. In fact, you’ve probably used it before. Both ’.’ and ’.R’ use the same internal routines.
They are called just before a number is printed.

This numeric string is created in the PAD and overwritten with each new call. But we’ll go into that a bit
later on.

What you have to remember is that you define the format reverse. What is printed first, is defined last in
the format. So if you want to print:

060-5556916

You have to define it this way:

6196555-060

Formatting begins with the word ’<#’ and ends with the word ’#>’. A single number is printed using ’#’
and the remainder of the number is printed using ’#s’ (which is always at least one digit). Let’s go a bit
further into that:

: print# s>d <# #s #> type cr ;
256 print#

This simply prints a single number (since only ’#S’ is between the ’<#’ and the ’#>’ and goes to a new
line. There is hardly any difference with ’.’. You can try any (positive) number. Note that the values that
’#>’ leaves on the stack can directly be used by ’TYPE’. You can forget about the ’S>D’ word. Just don’t
forget to put it there.

This is a slightly different format:

: print3# s>d <# # # # #> type cr ;
256 print3#
1 print3#
1000 print3#

3.30. PICTUREDNUMERICOUTPUT

41

This one will print "256", "001" and "000". Always the last three positions. The ’#’ simply stands for ’print
a single digit’. So if you want to print a number with at least three digits, the format would be:

#s # #

That is: print the remainder of the number (at least one digit) and then two more. Now reverse it:

# # #s

Enclose it by ’S>D’, ’<#’ and ’#>’ and add ’TYPE CR’:

s>d <# # # #s #> type cr

And that’s it! Is it? Not quite. So far we’ve only printed positive numbers. If you try a negative number,
you will find it prints garbage. This behavior can be fixed with the word ’SIGN’.

’SIGN’ simply takes the number from the stack and prints a "-" when it is negative. The problem is that all
other formatting words can only handle positive numbers. So we need the same number twice. One with
the sign and one without. A typical signed number formatting word looks like:

: signed# dup >r abs s>d <# #s r> sign #> type ;

Note the ’DUP ABS’ sequence. First the number is duplicated (for ’SIGN’) and then the absolute value is
taken (for the other formatting words). So we got the on the stack twice. First on the returnstack with sign
(for ’SIGN’), second without sign (for the other formatting words). Does that make sense to you?

We can place ’SIGN’ wherever we want. If we want to place the sign after the number (like some accoun-
tants do) we would write:

: account# dup >r abs s>d <# r> sign #s #> type ;

But that is still not enough to write "$2000.15" is it? Well, in order to do that there is another very handy
word called ’HOLD’. The word ’HOLD’ just copies any character into the formatted number. Let’s give it
a try:

$2000.16

Let’s reverse that:

61.0002$

So we first want to print two numbers, even when they are zero:

# # .0002$

Then we want to print a dot. This is where ’HOLD’ comes in. ’HOLD’ takes an ASCII code and places the
equivalent character in the formatting string. We don’t have to look up the ASCII code for a dot of course.
We can use ’CHAR’:

# # char . hold 0002$

42

CHAPTER3. ARRAYSANDSTRINGS

Then we want to print the rest of the number (which is at least one digit):

# # char . hold #s $

Finally we want to print the character "$". Another job for ’HOLD’:

# # char . hold #s char $ hold

So this is our formatting word:

: currency <# # # [char] . hold #s [char] $ hold #> type cr ;

And we call it like this:

200016 currency

You can do some pretty complex stuff with these formatting words. Try to figure out this one from the
master himself, Leo Brodie:

: sextal 6 base ! ;
: :00 # sextal # decimal 58 hold ;
: time# s>d <# :00 :00 #S #> type cr ;
3615 time#

Yeah, it prints the time! Pretty neat, huh? Now try the telephone-number we discussed in the beginning.
That shouldn’t be too hard.

3.31 Converting a number to a string

Since there is no special word in Forth which will convert a number to a string, we’ll have to create it
ourselves. In the previous section we have seen how a numeric string is created in the PAD. We can use
this to create a word that converts a number to a string.

Because the PAD is highly volatile, we have to move the string immediately after its creation. So we’ll
create a word that not only creates the string, but moves it directly to its proper location:

: >string >r dup >r abs s>d <# #s r> sign #>

r@ char+ swap dup >r cmove r> r> c! ;
( n a -- )

It takes a number, the address of a string and returns nothing. Example:

create num$ 16 chars allot
-1024 num$ >string
num$ count type cr

Chapter 4

Stacks and colon definitions

4.1 The address of a colon-definition

You can get the address of a colon definition by using the word ”’ (tick):

: add + ;
’ add . cr

\ a colon definition
\ display address

Very nice, but what good is it for? Well, first of all the construction "’ ADD" throws the address of "ADD"
on the stack. You can assign it to a variable, define a constant for it, or compile it into an array of constants:

’ add constant add-address

variable addr
’ add addr !

create addresses ’ add ,

Are you with us so far? If we would simply write "ADD", "ADD" would be executed right away and no
value would be left on the stack. Tick forces Forth to throw the address of "ADD" on the stack instead of
executing "ADD". What you can actually do with it, we will show you in the next section.

4.2 Vectored execution

This is a thing that can be terribly difficult in other languages, but is extremely easy in Forth. Maybe you’ve
ever seen a BASIC program like this:

10 LET A=40
20 GOSUB A
30 END
40 PRINT "Hello"
50 RETURN
60 PRINT "Goodbye"
70 RETURN

43

44

CHAPTER4. STACKSANDCOLONDEFINITIONS

If you execute this program, it will print "Hello". If you change variable "A" to "60", it will print "Good-
bye". In fact, the mere expression "GOSUB A" can do two different things. In Forth you can do this much
more comfortable:

: goodbye ." Goodbye" cr ;
: hello ." Hello" cr ;

variable a

: greet a @ execute ;

’ hello a !
greet

’ goodbye a !
greet

What are we doing here? First, we define a few colon-definitions, called "HELLO" and "GOODBYE".
Second, we define a variable called "A". Third, we define another colon-definition which fetches the
value of "A" and executes it by calling ’EXECUTE’. Then, we get the address of "HELLO" (by using "’
HELLO") and assign it to "A" (by using "A !"). Finally, we execute "GREET" and it says "Hello".

It seems as if "GREET" is simply an alias for "HELLO", but if it were it would print "Hello" throughout
the program. However, the second time we execute "GREET", it prints "Goodbye". That is because we
assigned the address of "GOODBYE" to "A".

The trick behind this all is ’EXECUTE’. ’EXECUTE’ takes the address of e.g. "HELLO" from the stack
and calls it. In fact, the expression:

hello

Is equivalent to:

’ hello execute

This can be extremely useful. We’ll give you a little hint:

create subs ’ hello , ’ goodbye ,

Does this give you any ideas?

4.3 Using values

A value is a cross-over between a variable and a constant. May be this example will give you an idea:

declaration:

variable a
1 constant b
2 b + value c

( No initial value)
( Initial value, can’t change)
( Initial value, can change)

4.4. THESTACKS

fetching:

45

a @
b
c

( Variable throws address on stack)
( Constant throws value on stack)
( Value throws value on stack)

storing:

2 b + a !

2 b + to c

( Expression can be stored at runtime)
( Constant cannot be reassigned)
( Expression can be stored at runtime)

In many aspects, values behave like variables and can replace variables. The only thing you cannot do is
make arrays of values.

In fact, a value is a variable that behaves in certain aspects like a constant. Why use a value at all? Well,
there are situations where a value can help, e.g. when a constant CAN change during execution. It is
certainly not a good idea to replace all variables by values.

4.4 The stacks

Forth has two stacks. So far we’ve talked about one stack, which is the Data Stack. The Data Stack is
heavily used, e.g. when you execute this code:

2 3 + .

Only the Data Stack is used. First, "2" is thrown on it. Second, "3" is thrown on it. Third, ’+’ takes both
values from the stack and returns the sum. Fourth, this value is taken from the stack by ’.’ and displayed.
So where do we need the other stack for?

Well, we need it when we want to call a colon-definition. Before execution continues at the colon-definition,
it saves the address of the currently executed definition on the other stack, which is called the Return Stack
for obvious reasons.

Then execution continues at the colon-definition. Every colon-defini tion is terminated by ’;’, which com-
piles into ’EXIT’. When ’EXIT’ is encountered, the address on top of the Return Stack is popped. Execu-
tion then continues at that address, which in fact is the place where we came from.

If we would store that address on the Data Stack, things would go wrong, because we can never be sure
how many values were on that stack when we called the colon-definition, nor would be know how many
there are on that stack when we encounter ’EXIT’. A separate stack takes care of that.

Try and figure out how this algorithm works when we call a colon-definition from a colon-definition and
you will see that it works (Forth is proof of that).

It now becomes clear how ’EXECUTE’ works. When ’EXECUTE’ is called, the address of the colon-
definition is on the Data Stack. All ’EXECUTE’ does is copy its address on the Return Stack, take the
address from the Data Stack and call it. ’EXIT’ never knows the difference..

But the Return Stack is used by other words too. Like ’DO’ and ’LOOP’. ’DO’ takes the limit and the
counter from the Data Stack and puts them on the Return Stack. ’LOOP’ takes both of them from the
Return Stack and compares them. If they don’t match, it continues execution after ’DO’. That is one of the
reasons that you cannot split a ’DO..’LOOP’.

However, if you call a colon-definition from within a ’DO’..’LOOP’ you will see it works:
the return
address is put on top of the limit and the counter. As long as you keep the Return Stack balanced (which
isn’t too hard) you can get away with quite a few things as we will see in the following section.

46

CHAPTER4. STACKSANDCOLONDEFINITIONS

4.5 Saving temporary values

We haven’t shown you how the Return Stack works just for the fun of it. Although it is an area that is
almost exclusively used by the system you can use it too.

We know we can manipulate the Data Stack only three items deep (using ’ROT’). Most of the time that is
more than enough, but sometimes it isn’t.

In Forth there are special words to manipulate stack items in pairs, e.g. "2DUP" ( n1 n2 – n1 n2 n1 n2)
or "2DROP" ( n1 n2 –). In most Forths they are already available, but we could easily define those two
ourselves:

: 2dup over over ;
: 2drop drop drop ;

You will notice that "2SWAP" ( n1 n2 n3 n4 – n3 n4 n1 n2) becomes a lot harder. How can we get this
deep? You can use the Return Stack for that..

The word ’>R’ takes an item from the Data Stack and puts it on the Return Stack. The word ’R>’ does it
the other way around. It takes the topmost item from the Return Stack and puts it on the Data Stack. Let’s
try it out:

: 2swap

rot
>r
rot
r>

;

( n1 n2 n3 n4) \ four items on the stack
( n1 n3 n4 n2) \ rotate the topmost three
( n1 n3 n4)
( n3 n4 n1)
( n3 n4 n1 n2) \ get n2 from the Return Stack

\ n2 is now on the Return Stack
\ rotate other items

And why does it work in this colon-definition? Why doesn’t the program go haywire? Because the Return
Stack is and was perfectly balanced. The only thing we had to do was to get off "n2" before the semi-colon
was encountered. Remember, the semi-colon compiles into ’EXIT’ and ’EXIT’ pops a return-address from
the Return Stack. Okay, let me show you the Return Stack effects:

: 2swap

rot
>r
rot
r>

;

( r1)
( r1)
( r1 n2)
( r1 n2)
( r1)
( --)

Note, these are the Return Stack effects! "R1" is the return-address. And it is there on top on the Return
Stack when ’EXIT’ is encountered. The general rule is:

Clean up your mess inside a colon-definition

If you save two values on the Return Stack, get them off there before you attempt to leave. If you save three,
get three off. And so on. This means you have to be very careful with looping and branching. Otherwise
you have a program that works perfectly in one situation and not in another:

: this-wont-work

>r
0= if

( n1 n2 -- n1 n2)
( n1)
( --)

4.6. THERETURNSTACKANDTHEDO..LOOP

47

r>
dup

1 2

else

then

;

( n2)
( n2 n2)

( 1 2)

This program will work perfectly if n1 equals zero. Why? Let’s look at the Return Stack effects:

: this-wont-work

>r
0= if

else

then

r>
dup

1 2

;

( r1)
( r1 n2)
( r1 n2)
( r1)
( r1)
( r1 n2)
( r1 n2)

You see when it enters the ’ELSE’ clause the Return Stack is never cleaned up, so Forth attempts to return
to the wrong address. Avoid this, since this can be very hard bugs to fix.

4.6 The Return Stack and the DO..LOOP

We’ve already told you that the limit and the counter of a DO..LOOP (or DO..+LOOP) are stored on the
Return Stack. But how does this affect saving values in the middle of a loop? Well, this example will make
that quite clear:

: test
1
10 0 do

>r
i .
r>

loop
cr
drop

;

test

( n)
( n)
( --)
( --)
( n)
( n)
( n)
( --)

You might expect that it will show you the value of the counter ten times. In fact, it doesn’t. Let’s take a
look at the Return Stack:

: test
1
10 0 do

>r
i .
r>

( --)
( l c)
( l c n)
( l c n)
( l c)

48

CHAPTER4. STACKSANDCOLONDEFINITIONS

loop
cr
drop

;

test

( --)
( --)
( --)

You might have noticed (unless you’re blind) that it prints ten times the number "1". Where does it come
from? Usually ’I’ prints the value of the counter, which is on top of the Return Stack.

This time it isn’t: the number "1" is there. So ’I’ thinks that "1" is actually the counter and displays it.
Since that value is removed from the Return Stack when ’LOOP’ is encountered, it doesn’t do much harm.

We see that we can safely store temporary values on the Return Stack inside a DO..LOOP, but we have to
clean up the mess, before we encounter ’LOOP’. So, this rule applies here too:

Clean up your mess inside a DO..LOOP

But we still have to be prepared that the word ’I’ will not provide the expected result (which is the current
value of the counter). In fact, ’I’ does simply copy the topmost value on the Return Stack. Which is usually
correct, unless you’ve manipulated the Return Stack yourself.

Note that there are other words beside ’I’, which do exactly the same thing: copy the top of the Return
Stack. But they are intended to be used outside a DO..LOOP. We’ll see an example of that in the following
section.

4.7 Other Return Stack manipulations

The Return Stack can avoid some complex stack acrobatics. Stack acrobatics? Well, you know it by now.
Sometimes all these values and addresses are just not in proper sequence, so you have to ’SWAP’ and
’ROT’ a lot until they are.

You can avoid some of these constructions by just moving a single value on the Return Stack. You can
return it to the Data Stack when the time is there. Or you can use the top of the Return Stack as a kind of
local variable.

No, you don’t have to move it around between both stacks all the time and you don’t have to use ’I’ out of
its context. There is a well-established word, which does the same thing: ’R@’. This is an example of the
use of ’R@’:

: delete

>r #lag +
r@ - #lag
r@ negate
r# +!
#lead +
swap cmove
r> blanks

;

( n --)
( a1)
( a1 a2 n2)
( a1 a2 n2 n3)
( a1 a2 n2)
( a1 a2 n2 a3)
( a1)
( --)

’R@’ copies the top of the Return Stack to the Data Stack. This example is taken from a Forth-editor. It
deletes "n" characters left of the cursor. By putting the number of characters on the Return Stack right
away, its value can be fetched by ’R@’ without using ’DUP’ or ’OVER’. Since it can be fetched at any
time, no ’SWAP’ or ’ROT’ has to come in.

4.8. ALTERINGTHEFLOWWITHTHERETURNSTACK

49

4.8 Altering the flow with the Return Stack

The mere fact that return addresses are kept on the stack means that you can alter the flow of a program.
This is hardly ever necessary, but if you’re a real hacker you’ll try this anyway, so we’d better give you
some pointers on how it is done. Let’s take a look at this program. Note that we comment on the Return
Stack effects:

: soup ." soup " ;
: dessert ." dessert " ;
: chicken ." chicken " ;
: rice ." rice " ;
: entree chicken rice ;
: dinner soup entree dessert ;
dinner cr

( r1 r2)
( r1 r6)
( r1 r3 r4)
( r1 r3 r5)
( r1 r3)
( r1)
( --)

And this is the output:

soup chicken rice dessert

Before we execute "DINNER" the Return Stack is empty. When we enter "DINNER" the return address to
the main program is on the Return Stack (r1).

"DINNER" calls "SOUP". When we enter "SOUP" the return address to "DINNER" is on the Return Stack
(r2). When we are done with "SOUP", its return address disappears from the Return Stack and execution
continues within "DINNER".

Then "ENTREE" is called, putting another return address on the Return Stack (r3). "ENTREE" on its
turn, calls "CHICKEN". Another return address (r4) is put on the Return Stack. Let’s take a look on what
currently lies on the Return Stack:

- Top Of Return Stack (TORS) -
r4
r3
r1

returns to ENTREE
returns to DINNER
returns to main program

-
-
-

As we already know, ’;’ compiles an ’EXIT’, which takes the TORS and jumps to that address. What if we
lose the current TORS? Will the system crash?

Apart from other stack effects (e.g.
too few or the wrong data are left on the Data Stack) nothing will
go wrong. Unless the colon-definition was called from inside a DO..LOOP, of course. But what DOES
happen? The solution is provided by the table: it will jump back to "DINNER" and continue execution
from there.

: soup ." soup " ;
: dessert ." dessert " ;
: chicken ." chicken " r> drop ;
: rice ." rice " ;
: entree chicken rice ;
: dinner soup entree dessert ;
dinner cr

( r1 r2)
( r1 r6)
( r1 r3 - r4 gets lost!)
( r1 r3 r5)
( r1 r3)

( r1)

( --)

Since "CHICKEN" gets rid of the return address to "ENTREE", "RICE" is never called. Instead, a jump
is made to "DINNER" that assumes that "ENTREE" is done, so it continues with "DESSERT". This is the
output:

50

CHAPTER4. STACKSANDCOLONDEFINITIONS

soup chicken dessert

Note that this is not common practice and we do not encourage its use. However, it gives you a pretty good
idea how the Return Stack is used by the system.

4.9 Leaving a colon-definition

You can sometimes achieve the very same effect by using the word ’EXIT’ on a strategic place. We’ve
already encountered ’EXIT’. It is the actual word that is compiled by ’;’.

What you didn’t know is that you can compile an ’EXIT’ without using a ’;’. And it does the very same
thing: it pops the return address from the Return Stack and jumps to it. Let’s take a look at our slightly
modified previous example:

: soup ." soup " ;
: dessert ." dessert " ;
: chicken ." chicken " ;
: rice ." rice " ;
: entree chicken exit rice ;
: dinner soup entree dessert ;
dinner cr

( r1 r2)
( r1 r6)
( r1 r3 r4)
( is never reached)
( r1 r3)

( r1)

( --)

After "CHICKEN" has been executed by "ENTREE", an ’EXIT’ is encountered. ’EXIT’ works just like
’;’, so Forth thinks the colon-definition has come to an end and jumps back to "DINNER". It never comes
to calling "RICE", so the output is:

soup chicken dessert

’EXIT’ is mostly used in combination with some kind of branching like IF..ELSE..THEN. Compare it with
’LEAVE’ that leaves a DO..LOOP early.

But now for the big question: what is the difference between ’EXIT’ and ’;’? Both compile an ’EXIT’,
but they are not aliases. Forth shuts down the compiler when encountering ’;’. This is not performed by
’EXIT’.

4.10 How deep is your stack?

You can ask Forth how many values are on the Data Stack using ’DEPTH’. It will report the number of
values, before you executed ’DEPTH’. Let’s elaborate on that a little more:

.( Begin) cr
10
5
9
depth
. cr

( no values on the stack)
( 1 value on the stack)
( 2 values on the stack)
( 3 values on the stack)
( 4 values on the stack)
( Forth reports "3")

Chapter 5

Advanced topics

5.1 Booleans and numbers

You might have expected we had discussed this subject much earlier. But we haven’t and for one very
good reason. We’ve told you a few chapters ago that ’IF’ branches if the top of the stack is non-zero. Any
number will do. So you would expect that this program will print "I’m here":

: test

1 2 and
if

." I’m here"

then

;

test

In fact, it doesn’t! Why? Well, ’AND’ is a BINARY operator, not a LOGICAL operator. That means it
reacts on bit-patterns. Given two numbers, it will evaluate bits at the same position.

The number "1" is "01" in binary. The number "2" is "10" in binary. ’AND’ will evaluate the first bit (binary
digit, now you know where that came from!). The first bit is the rightmost bit, so "0" for the number "2"
and "1" for the number "1".

’AND’ works on a simple rule, if both bits are "1" the result will be "1" on that position. Otherwise it will
be "0". So "1" and "0" are "0". The evaluation of the second bit has the same result: "0". We’re stuck with
a number that is "0". False. So ’IF’ concludes that the expression is not true:

2 base !
10
01 AND
= . cr

\ set radix to binary
( binary number "2")
( binary number "1")
( binary result after AND)

It will print "0". However, "3" and "2" would work just fine:

2 base !
10
11 AND
. cr

\ set radix to binary
( binary number "2")
( binary number "3")
( binary result after AND)

51

52

CHAPTER5. ADVANCEDTOPICS

It will print "10". The same applies to other binary operators as ’OR’ and ’INVERT’. ’OR’ works just
like ’AND’ but works the other way around. If both bits are "0" the result will be "0" on that position.
Otherwise it will be "1":

2 base !
10
01 OR
. cr

\ set radix to binary
( binary number "2")
( binary number "1")
( binary result after OR)

It will print "11". We do not encourage the use of ’INVERT’ for logical operations, although the standard
allows it. You should use ’0=’ instead. ’0=’ takes the top of the stack and leave a true-flag if it is zero.
Otherwise it will leave a false-flag. That means that if a condition istrue (non-zero), it will leave a false-flag.
Which is exactly what a logical NOT should do.

Take a look at his brother ’0<>’. ’0<>’ takes the top of the stack and leaves a true-flag if it is non-zero.
Otherwise it will leave a false- flag. The funny thing is ’AND’ and ’OR’ work perfectly with flags and
behave as expected. ’0<>’ will convert a value to a flag for you. So this works:

: test

1 0<>
2 0<>
and if

." I’m here" cr

then

;

test

Of course, you don’t have to use ’0<>’ when a word returns a flag. You should check the standard for
details on that.

5.2

Including your own definitions

At a certain point you may have written a lot of definitions you’re very fond of. You use them in most of
your programs, so before you actually get to the programs you have to work your way through all these
standard definitions. Even worse, when you change one of them you have to edit all your programs. Most
Forths have a way to permanently include them in the kernel, but if you’re not up to that or want your
programs to be as portable as possible you can solve this in a better way.

Just put all of your definitions in a single file and start your program with:

s" mydefs.fs" included

The compiler will now first compile all the definitions in ”mydefs.fs” before starting with the main program.
We’ve done exactly the same in the following sections. Most of the code you’ll find there uses the Easy4tH
extensions, so instead of listing them every single time, we’ve just included them. Easy4tH has old favorites
like ”PLACE” and ”NUMBER” already available to you.

You have to define the constant ”/STRING-SPACE” first in order to use it. A value of 16384 should be fine
in most cases. If you get an error, you can always increase it.

5.3. CONDITIONALCOMPILATION

53

5.3 Conditional compilation

This is something which can be very handy when you’re designing a Forth program for different environ-
ments or even different Forth compilers. Let’s say you’ve written a general ledger program in Forth that is
so good, you can sell it. Your customers want a demo, of course. You’re willing to give one to them, but
you’re afraid they’re going to use the demo without ever paying for it.

One thing you can do is limit the number of entries they can make. So, you copy the source and make a
special demo version. But you have to do that for every new release. Wouldn’t it just be easier to have one
version of the program and just change one single constant? You can with conditional compilation:

true constant DEMO

DEMO [if]
256 constant #Entries
[else]
65536 constant #Entries
[then]

variable CurrentEntry

create Entries #Entries cells allot

We defined a constant, called "DEMO", which is true. So, when the compiler reaches the "DEMO [if]" line,
it knows that it has to compile "256 constant Entries", since "DEMO" is true. When it comes to "[else]", it
knows it has to skip everything up to "[then]". So, in this case the compiler behaves like you’ve written:

256 constant #Entries
variable CurrentEntry
create Entries #Entries cells allot

Would you change "DEMO" to false, the compiler would behave as if you wrote:

variable CurrentEntry
65536 constant #Entries
create Entries #Entries cells allot

The word ’[IF]’ only works at compile time and is never compiled into the object. ’[IF]’ takes a expression.
If this expression is true, the code from ’[IF]’ until ’[ELSE]’ is compiled, just as ’[IF]’ wasn’t there. Is this
expression is false, everything ’[IF]’ up to ’[ELSE]’ is discarded as if it wasn’t there.

That also means you can discard any code that is superfluous in the program. E.g. when you’re making a
colon-definition to check whether you can make any more entries. If you didn’t use conditional compila-
tion, you might have written it like this:

: CheckIfFull

dup #Entries =
if

drop
DEMO
if

else

( n -- n)
( n f)
( n)
( --)
( f)
( --)

." Buy the full version"

\ give message and exit program

54

CHAPTER5. ADVANCEDTOPICS

." No more entries"

then

cr quit

then

;

( --)

( n)

But this one is nicer and will take up less code:

DEMO [IF]
: .Message ." Buy the full version" ;
[ELSE]
: .Message ." No more entries" ;
[THEN]

: CheckIfFull

dup #Entries =
if

drop
.Message
cr quit

then

;

( n -- n)
( n f)
( n)
( --)

( n)

You can also use conditional compilation to discard large chunks of code. This is a much better way than
to comment all the lines out, e.g. this won’t work anyway:

(

)

: room?

dup
size 1- invert and
if

\ is it a valid variable?
( n n)
( n f)
\ exit program

drop ." Not an element of ROOM" cr quit

then

;

This is pretty cumbersome and prone to error:

\
\
\
\
\
\
\

: room?

dup
size 1- invert and
if

\ is it a valid variable?
( n n)
( n f)
\ exit program

drop ." Not an element of ROOM" cr quit

then

;

But this is something that can easily be handled:

false [if]

: room?

dup

\ is it a valid variable?
( n n)

5.4. EXCEPTIONS

55

size 1- invert and
if

( n f)
\ exit program

drop ." Not an element of ROOM" cr quit

then

;

[then]

Just change "false" to "true" and the colon-definition is part of the program again. Note that ’[IF] ..
[THEN]’ can be nested! Conditional compilation is very powerful and one of the easiest features a language
can have.

5.4 Exceptions

You know when you violate the integrity of Forth, it will exit and report the cause and location of the error.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could catch these errors within the program? It would save a lot of error-checking
anyway. It is quite possible to check every value within Forth, but it takes code and performance, which
makes your program less compact and slower.

Well, you can do that too in Forth. And not even that, you can trigger your own errors as well. This simple
program triggers an error and exits Forth when you enter a "0":

16384 constant /string-space
s" easy4th.fs" included

: input#

begin

until

;

refill drop
bl word number
dup (error) <>
dup 0=
if swap drop then

: could-fail

input# dup 0=
if 1 throw then

;

: do-it

drop drop could-fail

;

: try-it

1 2 [’] do-it execute
." The number was" . cr

;

try-it

\ get a number

( --)
( n )
( n f )
( n f -f )
( f | n f )
( input routine )

\ get a number
\ if non-zero, return it
\ if zero, throw exception
( -- n)

\ drop numbers and
\ call COULD-FAIL
( --)

\ put 2 nums on stack and
\ execute DO-IT
( --)

\ call TRY-IT

56

CHAPTER5. ADVANCEDTOPICS

"TRY-IT" puts two numbers on the stack, gets the execution token of "DO-IT" and executes it. "DO-IT"
drops both numbers and calls "COULD-FAIL". "COULD-FAIL" gets a number and compares it against
"0". If zero, it calls an exception. If not, it returns the number.

The expression "1 THROW" has the same effect as calling ’QUIT’. The program exits, but with the error
message "Unhandled exception". You can use any positive number for ’THROW’, but "0 THROW" has no
effect. This is called a "user exception", which means you defined and triggered the error.

There are also system exceptions. These are triggered by the system, e.g. when you want to access an
undefined variable or print a number when the stack is empty. These exceptions have a negative number,
so:

throw -4

Will trigger the "Stack empty" error. You can use these if you want but we don’t recommend it, since it
will confuse the users of your program.

You’re probably not interested in an alternative for ’QUIT’. Well, ’THROW’ isn’t. It just enables you to
"throw" an exception and exceptions can be caught by your program. That means that Forth won’t exit, but
transfers control back to some routine. Let’s do just that:

16384 constant /string-space
s" easy4th.fs" included

: input#

begin

refill drop
bl word number
dup (error) <>
dup 0=
if swap drop then

until

;

: could-fail

input# dup 0=
if 1 throw then

;

: do-it

drop drop could-fail

;

: try-it

( --)
( n )
( n f )
( n f -f )
( f | n f )
( input routine )

( -- n)

( --)

( --)

1 2 [’] do-it catch
if drop drop ." There was an exception" cr
else ." The number was" . cr
then

;

try-it

The only things we changed is a somewhat more elaborate "TRY-IT" definition and we replaced ’EXE-
CUTE’ by ’CATCH’.

5.4. EXCEPTIONS

57

’CATCH’ works just like ’EXECUTE’, except it returns a result-code. If the result-code is zero, everything
is okay. If it isn’t, it returns the value of ’THROW’. In this case it would be "1", since we execute "1
THROW". That is why "0 THROW" doesn’t have any effect.

If you enter a nonzero value at the prompt, you won’t see any difference with the previous version. How-
ever, if we enter "0", we’ll get the message "There was an exception", before the program exits.

But hey, if we got that message, that means Forth was still in control! In fact, it was. When "1 THROW" was
executed, the stack-pointers were restored and we were directly returned to "TRY-IT". As if "1 THROW"
performed an ’EXIT’ to the token following ’CATCH’.

Since the stack-pointers were returned to their original state, the two values we discarded in "DO-IT" are
still on the stack. But the possibility exists they have been altered by previous definitions. The best thing
we can do is discard them.

So, the first version exited when you didn’t enter a nonzero value. The second version did too, but not after
giving us a message. Can’t we make a version in which we can have another try? Yes we can:

16384 constant /string-space
s" easy4th.fs" included

: input#

begin

refill drop
bl word number
dup (error) <>
dup 0=
if swap drop then

until

;

: could-fail

input# dup 0=
if 1 throw then

;

: do-it

drop drop could-fail

;

: retry-it

begin

while

1 2 [’] do-it catch

( --)
( n )
( n f )
( n f -f )
( f | n f )
( input routine )

( -- n)

( --)

( --)

drop drop ." Exception, keep trying" cr

repeat
." The number was " . cr

;

retry-it

This version will not only catch the error, but it allows us to have another go! We can keep on entering
"0", until we enter a nonzero value. Isn’t that great? But it gets even better! We can exhaust the stack,
trigger a system exception and still keep on going. But let’s take it one step at the time. First we change
"COULD-FAIL" into:

58

CHAPTER5. ADVANCEDTOPICS

: could-fail

( -- n)

input# dup 0=
if drop ." Stack: " depth . cr 1 throw then

;

This will tell us that the stack is exhausted at his point. Let’s exhaust is a little further by redefining
"COULD-FAIL" again:

: could-fail

( -- n)

input# dup 0=
if drop drop then

;

Another ’DROP’? But wouldn’t that trigger an "Stack empty" error? Yeah, it does. But instead of exiting,
the program will react as if we wrote "-4 THROW" instead of "DROP DROP". The program will correctly
report an exception when we enter "0" and act accordingly.

This will work with virtually every runtime error. Which means we won’t have to protect our program
against every possible user-error, but let Forth do the checking.

We won’t even have to set flags in every possible colon-definition, since Forth will automatically skip every
level between ’THROW’ and ’CATCH’. Even better, the stacks will be restored to the same depth as they
were before ’CATCH’ was called.

You can handle the error in any way you want. You can display an error message, call some kind of
error-handler, or just ignore the error. Is that enough flexibility for you?

5.5 Lookup tables

Leo Brodie wrote: "I consider the case statement an elegant solution to a misguided problem: attempting
an algorithmic expression of what is more aptly described in a decision table". And that is exactly what we
are going to teach you.

Let’s say we want a routine that takes a number and then prints the appropriate month. In ANS-Forth, you
could do that this way:

: Get-Month

case

1 of ." January " endof
2 of ." February " endof
" endof
March
3 of ."
" endof
April
4 of ."
" endof
5 of ."
May
" endof
June
6 of ."
" endof
7 of ."
July
8 of ." August
" endof
9 of ." September" endof
10 of ." October " endof
11 of ." November " endof
12 of ." December " endof

endcase
cr

;

5.5. LOOKUPTABLES

59

This takes a lot of code and a lot of comparing. In this case (little wordplay) you would be better of with
an indexed table, like this:

16384 constant /string-space
s" easy4th.fs" included

create MonthTable

May
June
July

$"
January " ,
$" February " ,
March " ,
$"
April " ,
$"
" ,
$"
" ,
$"
$"
" ,
August " ,
$"
$" September" ,
$"
October " ,
$" November " ,
$" December " ,

: Get-Month

( n -- )

12 min 1- MonthTable swap cells + @ pad copy1 count type cr

;

Which does the very same thing and will certainly work faster. Normally, you can’t do that this easily in
ANS-Forth, but with this primer you can, so use it! But can you use the same method when you’re working
with a random set of values like "2, 1, 3, 12, 5, 6, 4, 7, 11, 8, 10, 9". Yes, you can. But you need a special
routine to access such a table. Of course we designed one for you:

: Search-Table

swap >r
rot rot
over over
0

begin

swap over
cells +
@ dup
0> >r
rot <>
r@ and

r> drop
r@ +
>r over over
r>

while

repeat

r@ if

( n1 a1 n2 n3 -- n4 f)
( n1 a1 n3)
( n3 n1 a1)
( n3 n1 a1 n1 a1)
( n3 n1 a1 n1 a1 n2)

( n3 n1 a1 n1 a1 n2)
( n3 n1 a1 n1 n2 a1 n2)
( n3 n1 a1 n1 n2 a2)
( n3 n1 a1 n1 n2 n3 n3)
( n3 n1 a1 n1 n2 n3)
( n3 n1 a1 n2 f)
( n3 n1 a1 n2 f)
( n3 n1 a1 n2)
( n3 n1 a1 n2)
( n3 n1 a1 n2+2)
( n3 n1 a1 n1 a1)
( n3 n1 a1 n1 a1 n2+2)
( n3 n1 a1 n2)

>r rot r>

( n1 a1 n3 n2)

1”COPY” is part of the Easy4tH extensions and will copy a counted string from one address to another (addr1 addr2 – addr2).

60

CHAPTER5. ADVANCEDTOPICS

+ cells + @
swap drop

( n1 n4)
( n3)

drop drop drop ( n1)

else

then

r>
r> drop

;

( n f)
( n f)

This routine takes four values. The first one is the value you want to search. The second is the address of
the table you want to search. The third one is the number of fields this table has. And on top of the stack
you’ll find the field which value it has to return. The first field must be the "index" field. It contains the
values which have to be compared. That field has number zero.

This routine can search zero-terminated tables. That means the last value in the index field must be zero.
Finally, it can only lookup positive values. You can change all that by modifying the line with "0> >r". It
returns the value in the appropriate field and a flag. If the flag is false, the value was not found.

Now, how do we apply this to our month table? First, we have to redefine it:

16384 constant /string-space
s" easy4th.fs" included

0 Constant NULL

create MonthTable

March
April
May
June
July

1 , $" January " ,
2 , $" February " ,
" ,
3 , $"
" ,
4 , $"
" ,
5 , $"
" ,
6 , $"
" ,
7 , $"
8 , $" August
" ,
9 , $" September" ,
10 , $" October " ,
11 , $" November " ,
12 , $" December " ,
NULL ,

Note that this table is sorted, but that doesn’t matter. It would work just as well when it was unsorted. Let’s
get our stuff together: the address of the table is "MonthTable", it has two fields and we want to return the
address of the string, which is located in field 1. Field 0 contains the values we want to compare. We can
now define a routine which searches our table:

: Search-Month MonthTable 2 1 Search-Table ;

( n1 -- n2 f)

Now, we define a new "Get-Month" routine:

: Get-Month

Search-Month

( n --)
\ search table

5.6. WHATDOES>CREATEDO?

61

pad copy count type

drop ." Not found"

\ if month is found
\ print its name
\ if month is not found
\ drop value
\ and show message

if

else

then

cr

;

Is this flexible? Oh, you bet! We can extend the table with ease:

16384 constant /string-space
s" easy4th.fs" included

0 Constant NULL
3 Constant #MonthFields

create MonthTable

1 , $" January " , 31 ,
2 , $" February " , 28 ,
" , 31 ,
March
3 , $"
" , 30 ,
April
4 , $"
" , 31 ,
May
5 , $"
" , 30 ,
June
6 , $"
" , 31 ,
7 , $"
July
8 , $" August
" , 31 ,
9 , $" September" , 30 ,
10 , $" October " , 31 ,
11 , $" November " , 30 ,
12 , $" December " , 31 ,
NULL ,

Now we make a slight modification to "Search-Month":

: Search-Month MonthTable #MonthFields 1 Search-Table ;

This enables us to add more fields without ever having to modify "Search-Month" again. If we add another
field, we just have to modify "#MonthFields". We can now even add another routine, which enables us to
retrieve the number of days in a month:

: Search-#Days MonthTable #Monthfields 2 Search-Table ;

Of course, there is room for even more optimization, but for now we leave it at that. Do you now understand
why Forth shouldn’t have a CASE construct?

5.6 What DOES> CREATE do?

Let’s take a closer look at ’CREATE’. What does ’CREATE’ actually do? Well, it takes the string afterward
as a name and makes a word out of it. Let’s try this:

CREATE aname

62

CHAPTER5. ADVANCEDTOPICS

You can even type that at the prompt. It works, it just makes a word. If you don’t believe me, type this:

aname .

Now "ANAME" just wrote out an address. When you’re still at the prompt and haven’t done anything else,
type this:

5 ,

Right after our definition we just compiled in "5". Is that useful? Can we ever retrieve it? Sure, we just
created "ANAME", didn’t we? And the address "ANAME" gave is exactly the address where out "5" was
compiled! Believe it or not:

aname @ .

Sure, it answers "5". We can even compile another number:

10 ,

And retrieve it:

aname 1 cells + @ .

Looks a lot like an array doesn’t it? Well, under the hood Forth is actually doing the same thing. Let’s say
we want a word that compiles a number and makes a name for it. We could define this:

: compilenumber create , ;

Now let’s use it:

10 compilenumber anothername
anothername @ .

First ’CREATE’ does it’s job and and creates the word "ANOTHERNAME". Second, ’,’ kicks in and
compiles the number that is on the stack, just like at our previous example. When we execute, the address
of the number is thrown on the stack, so we can retrieve the contents and display them.

Don’t you think "COMPILENUMBER" is a bad name. What we actually did was create an initialized
variable! So what do you think the word ’VARIABLE’ does? Simple:

: variable create 1 cells allot ;

It creates a name and reserves some space for it! But can’t we do anything else than just throw a address.
Yes, you can not just define the way Forth compiles a word, but also what it does at runtime. You use
’DOES>’ to define it. Let’s say we want it to display the contents right away. We already got an address.
What next? Sure:

@ .

That will get the contents of the address and show ’em. Just put them behind ’DOES>’:

5.7. FIXEDPOINTCALCULATION

63

: displaynumber create , does> @ . ;

That’s it! Let’s use it:

11 displaynumber anumber
anumber

Great, isn’t it? Looks a lot like ’CONSTANT’, doesn’t it? Let’s fill you in on that. ’CONSTANT’ is defined
like this:

: constant create , does> @ ;

There is really nothing more to it. Yeah, you can do great things with that. Make you own datatypes and
such. We’ll see more of that later on.

5.7 Fixed point calculation

We already learned that if we can’t calculate it out in dollars, we can calculate it in cents. And still present
the result in dollars using pictured numeric output:

: currency <# # # [char] . hold #s [char] $ hold #> type cr ;

In this case, this:

200012 currency

will print this:

$2000.12

Well, that may be a relief for the bookkeepers, but what about us scientists? You can do the very same trick.
We have converted some Forth code for you that gives you very accurate results. You can use routines like
SIN, COS and SQRT. A small example:

31415 CONSTANT PI
10000 CONSTANT 10K
VARIABLE XS

( scaling constant )
( square of scaled angle )

: KN ( n1 n2 -- n3, n3=10000-n1*x*x/n2 where x is the angle )

XS @ SWAP /
NEGATE 10K */
10K +

( x*x/n2 )
( -n1*x*x/n2 )
( 10000-n1*x*x/n2 )

;

: (SIN)

DUP DUP 10K */
XS !
10K 72 KN
42 KN 20 KN 6 KN

( x -- sine*10K, x in radian*10K )
( x*x scaled by 10K )
( save it in XS )
( last term )
( terms 3, 2, and 1 )

64

CHAPTER5. ADVANCEDTOPICS

10K */

( times x )

;

: SIN

;

PI 180 */
(SIN)

If you enter:

45 sin . cr

( degree -- sine*10K )
( convert to radian )
( compute sine )

You will get "7071", because the result is multiplied by 10000. You can correct this the same way you did
with the dollars: just print the number in the right format.

: /10K. <# # # # # [char] . hold #S #> type cr ;
45 sin /10K.

This one will actually print:

0.7071

But note that Forth internally still works with the scaled number, which is "7071". Another example:

: SQRT

0
SWAP 0
DO 1 + DUP

2* 1 +

+LOOP

;

( n1 -- n2, n2**2<=n1 )
( initial root )
( set n1 as the limit )
( refresh root )
( 2n+1 )
( add 2n+1 to sum, loop if )
( less than n1, else done )

: .fp <# # [char] . hold #S #> type cr ;

If you enter a number of which the root is an integer, you will get a correct answer. You don’t even need a
special formatting routine. If you enter any other number, it will return only the integer part. You can fix
this by scaling the number.

However, scaling it by 10 will get you nowhere, since "3" is the square root of "9", but "30" is not the
square root of "90". In that case, we have to scale it by 100, 10,000 or even 1,000,000 to get a correct
answer. In order to retrieve the next digit of the square root of "650", we have to multiply it by 100:

650 100 * sqrt .fp

Which will print:

25.4

To acquire greater precision we have to scale it up even further, like 10,000. This will show us, that "25.49"
brings us even closer to the correct answer.

5.8. RECURSION

5.8 Recursion

65

Yes, but can she do recursion? Of course she can! In order to let a colon-definition call itself, you have to
use the word ’RECURSE’. Everybody knows how to calculate a factorial. In Forth you can do this by:

: factorial

( n1 -- n2)

dup 2 >
if

dup 1-
recurse *

then

;

10 factorial . cr

If you use the word ’RECURSE’ outside a colon-definition, the results are undefined. Note that recursion
lays a heavy burden on the return stack. Sometimes it is wiser to implement such a routine differently:

: factorial

dup

begin

while

dup 2 >

1- swap over * swap

repeat

drop

;

10 factorial . cr

So if you ever run into stack errors when you use recursion, keep this in mind.

5.9 Forward declarations

It doesn’t happen very often, but sometimes you have a program where two colon-definitions call each
other. There is no special instruction in Forth to do this, like Pascals "FORWARD" keyword, but still it
can be done. It even works the same way. Let’s say we’ve got two colon-definitions called "STEP1" and
"STEP2". "STEP1" calls "STEP2" and vice versa. First we create a value called "(STEP2)". We assign it
the value ’-1’ since it is highly unlikely, there will ever be a word with that address:

-1 value (Step2)

Then we use vectored execution to create a forward declaration for "STEP2":

: Step2 (Step2) execute ;

Now we can create "STEP1" without a problem:

66

CHAPTER5. ADVANCEDTOPICS

: Step1 1+ dup . cr Step2 ;

But "STEP2" does not have a body yet. Of course, you could create a new colon-definition, tick it and
assign the execution token to "(STEP2)", but this creates a superfluous word.

It is much neater to use ’:NONAME’. ’:NONAME’ can be used like a normal ’:’, but it doesn’t require a
name. Instead, it pushes the execution token of the colon-definition it created on the stack. No, ’:NON-
AME’ does *NOT* create a literal expression, but it is just what we need:

:noname 1+ dup . cr Step1 ; to (Step2)

Now we are ready! We can simply execute the program by calling "STEP1":

1 Step1

Note that if you run this program, you’ll get stack errors! Sorry, but the example has been taken from a
Turbo Pascal manual ;).

5.10 This is the end

This is the end of it. If you mastered all we have written about Forth, you may be just as proficient as
we are. Or even better. In the meanwhile you may even have acquired a taste for this strange, but elegant
language. If you do, there is plenty left for you to learn.

If you find any errors in this primer or just want to make a remark or suggestion, you can contact us by
sending an email to:

hansoft@bigfoot.com

We do also have a web-site:

http://hansoft.come.to

You will find there lots of documentation and news on 4tH, our own Forth compiler.

Part I

Appendices

67

Bibliography

ANSI X3/X3J14 (1993).

Draft proposed American National Standrad for Information Systems — Programming Languages
— Forth. Global Engineering Documents, 15 Inverness Way East, Englewood, CO 80122-5704, USA,
sixth edition, 1993. Document Number: ANSI/IEEE X3.215-1994.

Leo Brodie (1982).

Starting Forth. Prentice Hall International, second edition, 1982.

Leo Brodie (1984).

Thinking Forth. Prentice Hall International, 1984.

Hans Bezemer / Benjamin Hoyt (1997).

Lookup Tables. Forth Dimensions, Volume XIX, Number 3, September 1997 October.

69

70

History

VERSION AUTHOR

DATE

MODIFICATION

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

Hans Bezemer

2001-03-07

Initial document

Hans Bezemer

2001-03-11

Used ’COMUS’ APPEND and changed ” to $” in section ’Lookup Tables’

Hans Bezemer

2001-03-25

Changed several things in Easy4tH and fixed some errors in example programs

Hans Bezemer

2001-04-06

Got rid of SCOPY and added ’What DOES> CREATE do’

71

72

Easy4tH

\ easy4th V1.0d

A 4tH to ANS Forth interface

\ Typical usage:
\
\

4096 constant /string-space
s" easy4th.fs" included

\ This is an ANS Forth program requiring:
\
\
\
\
\

1. The word NIP in the Core Ext. word set
2. The word /STRING in the String word set
3. The word D>S in the Double word set
4. The words MS and TIME&DATE in the Facility Ext. word set
5. The words [IF] and [THEN] in the Tools Ext. word set.

\ (c) Copyright 1997,2001 Wil Baden, Hans Bezemer. Permission is granted by the
\ authors to use this software for any application provided this
\ copyright notice is preserved.

\ Uncomment the next line if REFILL does not function properly
\ : refill query cr true ;

\ 4tH datatypes
: ARRAY CREATE CELLS ALLOT ;
: STRING CREATE CHARS ALLOT ;
: TABLE CREATE ;

\ 4tH constants
S" MAX-N" ENVIRONMENT?
[IF]
NEGATE 1- CONSTANT (ERROR)
[ELSE]
.( Error: MAX-N undefined) cr
[THEN]

S" MAX-N" ENVIRONMENT?
[IF]
CONSTANT MAX-N
[ELSE]
.( Error: MAX-N undefined) cr
[THEN]

\ query environment
\ if successful
\ create constant (ERROR)

\ query environment
\ if successful
\ create constant MAX-N

S" STACK-CELLS" ENVIRONMENT?

\ query environment

73

74

[IF]
CONSTANT STACK-CELLS
[ELSE]
.( Error: STACK-CELLS undefined) cr
[THEN]

\ if successful
\ create constant STACK-CELLS

S" /PAD" ENVIRONMENT?
[IF]
CONSTANT /PAD
[ELSE]
.( Error: /PAD undefined) cr
[THEN]

\ query environment
\ if successful
\ create constant /PAD

\ 4tH compiletime words
: [NOT] 0= ;
: [*] * ;
: [+] + ;

\ 4tH wordset
: TH CELLS + ;
: @’ @ ;
: COPY ( a b -- b ) >R
: WAIT 1000 * MS ;

DUP C@ 1+ R@ SWAP MOVE R> ;

: NUMBER

( a -- n)

0. ROT DUP 1+ C@ [CHAR] - = >R COUNT
R@ IF 1 /STRING THEN >NUMBER NIP 0=
IF D>S R> IF NEGATE THEN ELSE R> DROP 2DROP (ERROR) THEN

;

( Reserve STRING-SPACE
CREATE STRING-SPACE
VARIABLE NEXT-STRING

in data-space. )

/STRING-SPACE CHARS ALLOT
0 NEXT-STRING !

( caddr n addr -- )
: PLACE OVER OVER >R >R CHAR+ SWAP CHARS MOVE R> R> C! ;

( "string<">" -- caddr )
: $" [CHAR] " PARSE

DUP 1+ NEXT-STRING @ + /STRING-SPACE >
ABORT" String Space Exhausted. "

STRING-SPACE NEXT-STRING @ CHARS + >R
DUP 1+ NEXT-STRING +!
R@ PLACE
R>

;

\ 4tHs Random generator

( Default RNG from the C Standard.
( properties, plus the advantage of being widely used. )
VARIABLE RANDSEED

‘RAND’ has reasonable )

32767 CONSTANT MAX-RAND

75

: RAND

RANDSEED @ ( random) 1103515245 *
16 RSHIFT

MAX-RAND AND

( -- random )

12345 +

DUP RANDSEED !

;

: SRAND ( n -- ) RANDSEED ! ; 1 SRAND

( Don’t mumble. )
: random

( -- n )

RAND ;

: set-random

( n -- )

SRAND ;

12 * + 31 * + 24 * + 60 * + 60 * + set-random

( -- )

( Mix ’em up. )
: randomize
TIME&DATE

;

randomize

76

GNU Free Documentation License

GNU Free Documentation License

Version 1.1, March 2000

Copyright (C) 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307
USA

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is
not allowed.

0. PREAMBLE

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We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software
needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the
software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used for any textual work,
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This License applies to any manual or other work that contains a notice placed by the copyright holder
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A "Modified Version" of the Document means any work containing the Document or a portion of it, either
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in addition. Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve the title of the Document
and satisfy these conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in other respects.

If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit legibly, you should put the first ones listed (as
many as fit reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent pages.

If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering more than 100, you must either in-
clude a machine-readable Transparent copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque
copy a publicly-accessible computer-network location containing a complete Transparent copy of the Doc-
ument, free of added material, which the general network-using public has access to download anony-
mously at no charge using public-standard network protocols. If you use the latter option, you must take

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reasonably prudent steps, when you begin distribution of Opaque copies in quantity, to ensure that this
Transparent copy will remain thus accessible at the stated location until at least one year after the last time
you distribute an Opaque copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of that edition to the public.

It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the Document well before redistributing any
large number of copies, to give them a chance to provide you with an updated version of the Document.

4. MODIFICATIONS

You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the conditions of sections 2 and 3
above, provided that you release the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified Ver-
sion filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and modification of the Modified Version
to whoever possesses a copy of it. In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:

A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the Document, and from
those of previous versions (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section of the Doc-
ument). You may use the same title as a previous version if the original publisher of that version gives
permission.

B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the
modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document
(all of its principal authors, if it has less than five).

C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version, as the publisher.

D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.

E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright notices.

F. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public permission to use the
Modified Version under theterms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.

G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and required Cover Texts given in the
Document’s license notice.

H. Include an unaltered copy of this License.

I. Preserve the section entitled "History", and its title, and add to it an item stating at least the title, year, new
authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there is no section entitled
"History" in the Document, create one stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as
given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in the previous sentence.

J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access to a Transparent copy
of the Document, and likewise the network locations given in the Document for previous versions it was
based on. These may be placed in the "History" section. You may omit a network location for a work that
was published at least four years before the Document itself, or if the original publisher of the version it
refers to gives permission.

K. In any section entitled "Acknowledgements" or "Dedications", preserve the section’s title, and preserve
in the section all the substance and tone of each of the contributor acknowledgements and/or dedications
given therein.

L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section
numbers or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.

M. Delete any section entitled "Endorsements". Such a section may not be included in the Modified Ver-
sion.

N. Do not retitle any existing section as "Endorsements" or to conflict in title with any Invariant Section. If
the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections

80

and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all of these
sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version’s
license notice. These titles must be distinct from any other section titles.

You may add a section entitled "Endorsements", provided it contains nothing but endorsements of your
Modified Version by various parties–for example, statements of peer review or that the text has been ap-
proved by an organization as the authoritative definition of a standard.

You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a passage of up to 25 words as
a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage of
Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or through arrangements made by) any
one entity. If the Document already includes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you or
by arrangement made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of, you may not add another; but you
may replace the old one, on explicit permission from the previous publisher that added the old one.

The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License give permission to use their names
for publicity for or to assert or imply endorsement of any Modified Version.

5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS

You may combine the Document with other documents released under this License, under the terms defined
in section 4 above for modified versions, provided that you include in the combination all of the Invari-
ant Sections of all of the original documents, unmodified, and list them all as Invariant Sections of your
combined work in its license notice.

The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and multiple identical Invariant Sections
may be replaced with a single copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same name but different
contents, make the title of each such section unique by adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of
the original author or publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number.

Make the same adjustment to the section titles in the list of Invariant Sections in the license notice of the
combined work.

In the combination, you must combine any sections entitled "History" in the various original documents,
forming one section entitled "History"; likewise combine any sections entitled "Acknowledgements", and
any sections entitled "Dedications". You must delete all sections entitled "Endorsements."

6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS

You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents released under this License,
and replace the individual copies of this License in the various documents with a single copy that is included
in the collection, provided that you follow the rules of this License for verbatim copying of each of the
documents in all other respects.

You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it individually under this License,
provided you insert a copy of this License into the extracted document, and follow this License in all other
respects regarding verbatim copying of that document.

7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS

A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent documents or works,
in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, does not as a whole count as a Modified Version

81

of the Document, provided no compilation copyright is claimed for the compilation. Such a compilation
is called an "aggregate", and this License does not apply to the other self-contained works thus compiled
with the Document, on account of their being thus compiled, if they are not themselves derivative works of
the Document.

If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of the Document, then if the
Document is less than one quarter of the entire aggregate, the Document’s Cover Texts may be placed
on covers that surround only the Document within the aggregate. Otherwise they must appear on covers
around the whole aggregate.

8. TRANSLATION

Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute translations of the Document under
the terms of section 4. Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires special permission from
their copyright holders, but you may include translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to
the original versions of these Invariant Sections. You may include a translation of this License provided
that you also include the original English version of this License. In case of a disagreement between the
translation and the original English version of this License, the original English version will prevail.

9. TERMINATION

You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under
this License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and will
automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or
rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain
in full compliance.

10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE

The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU Free Documentation License
from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail
to address new problems or concerns. See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.

Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the Document specifies that a
particular numbered version of this License "or any later version" applies to it, you have the option of
following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or of any later version that has been
published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version
number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free Software
Foundation.

ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents

To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of the License in the document and put
the following copyright and license notices just after the title page:

Copyright (c) YEAR YOUR NAME.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the
GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free

82

Software Foundation; with the Invariant Sections being LIST THEIR TITLES, with the Front-
Cover Texts being LIST, and with the Back-Cover Texts being LIST. A copy of the license is
included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

If you have no Invariant Sections, write "with no Invariant Sections" instead of saying which ones are
invariant. If you have no Front-Cover Texts, write "no Front-Cover Texts" instead of "Front-Cover Texts
being LIST"; likewise for Back-Cover Texts.

If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing these examples
in parallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to permit
their use in free software.