::SHE+ILA::'s Dictionary

More about ::SHE+ILA::'s Dictionary

The input editor and lister now enter any alphabetic words (such as identifiers of variables) into a dedicated Dictionary segment. These are then transcoded as $E4 NN NN or $E5 NN NN NN NN in the codestream, in order to eliminate long strings and repeatedly-used variable names/datanames from the stored code and data. This is called "tokenisation". This also occurs in comments, in order that there is no disadvantage in inputting long and descriptive comments throughout the source code. The dictionary segment is processed specially, so that ETAIONS compression can be used for speed and efficiency. During listing the $E4 is regarded as a Space ($20) in order that adjacent words are sensibly separated without "bleeding into" each other (e.g. THIS IS A COMMENT as opposed to THISISACOMMENT).