A numeric constant may be in fixed point format, like the numbers in this example (2, 90 and 0.0625).
x+2
today() - 90
Total * 0.0625
A numeric constant may also be in floating point format, which consists of the mantissa followed by the letter e followed by the exponent. For example, suppose you needed to use this mathematical formula:
Here is how you would write this formula in Panorama.
x * 6.02e23
A formula may also contain text constants. A text constant is a series of characters surrounded by quotes. When writing a text constant you may choose from six different types of quotes: Double Quotes, Single Quotes, Curly Braces, Smart Double Quotes, Smart Single Quotes, and Pipes.
Double Quotes — This is the most common quoting method. The embedded text begins with a "
and ends with another "
.
"January"
A possible complication is if you want to include the "
character itself in the embedded text.
Suppose that you needed to use the text The shim was 6" high in a formula. Using double quotes around the constant will cause a grammar error (usually referred to as a syntax error), because Panorama will think that the embedded text ends after the second "
character, and it won’t know what to do with the text high"
.
"The shim was 6" high"
One solution is put two double quotes in a row, as shown in the example below. Panorama will convert these into a single quote and continue with the text constant.
"The shim was 6"" high"
Another solution is to use a different type of quote (see below).
Some other programming languages solve this problem by using an escape character, usually a backslash. Panorama does not use escape characters in text constants.
Single Quote — The embedded text begins with a '
and ends with another '
, like this.
'Tuesday'
You can use single quotes if you want to include a double quote in the embedded text.
'The shim was 6" high'
Curly Brace — The embedded text begins with a {
and ends with }
, like this.
{San Francisco}
Smart Double Quote — The embedded text begins with a “
and ends with ”
, like this.
“Gothic”
Smart Single Quote — The embedded text begins with a ‘
and ends with ’
, like this.
‘Bohemian’
Pipes — The embedded text begins with one or more pipe symbols |
and ends with the same number of pipe symbols. For example, if the constant begins with |||
then it must end with |||
, if it begins with |||||
it must end with |||||
. Using the multiple pipes as quotes makes it easy to embed any other kind of character in the text constant:
|||last="Elliot" first="Suzette" address="892 Melody Lane"|||
You can even embed pipes within a piped constant, like this:
|||| language=javascript code=||alert("Hello World");|| ||||
As you can see pipe delimited constants are very handy for creating text constants that contain computer code.
Panorama has one built in numeric constant—pi. Use the Greek π symbol to access this value. For example the area of a circle can be calculated with this formula.
π * radius^2
To create the π symbol press Option-P.
You can also use the pi() function instead of this special symbol.
pi() * radius^2
Panorama has two built in text constants—¶ (Carriage Return) and¬ (Tab). For example a three-line address can be included in a formula like this.
"Suzette Elliot"+¶+892 Melody Lane"+¶+"Fullerton, CA 92831"
To create the ¶ symbol press Option–7. To create the ¬ symbol press Option-L.
Panorama also has functions to create special characters:
cr() ☞ Carriage Return
lf() ☞ Line Feed
crlf() ☞ Carriage Return + Line Feed
tab() ☞ Tab
vtab() ☞ Vertical Tab
There is also a general purpose function, chr(, that can be used to specify any Unicode character by its numeric value (see Characters and Unicode Values).
Backslash Escape Sequences — Some programming languages allow you to embed special characters in a text constant by using a special sequence starting with a backslash character. Panorama doesn’t allow this, the backslash is just another ordinary character. For example, in the C programming language you can embed a tab character with \t
, like this:
"First column\tSecond column"
In Panorama, you can’t embed a tab this way. Instead, you need to do something like this:
"First column"+tab()+"Second column"
Or like this:
"First column"+¬+"Second column"
See Also
History
Version | Status | Notes |
10.0 | No Change | Carried over from Panorama 6.0 |