Business Functions Overview

Functions have the following format:

Func(<exp>)

The Func part of the function is referred to as the function name. The name is followed by opening and closing round brackets. Inside the round brackets there may be an optional number of parameters. If there is more than one parameter, they are divided by commas. Consider this function:

Result := Int(13.31)

The first part--INT--is the name of the function. In this case it stands for Integer and literally means "return the integer of". The number 13.31 is the parameter. The integer of 13.31 is 13. The number 13 would therefore be assigned to the variable Result.

The next function accepts two parameters:

Result := Max(10, 20)

The function name--MAX--is short for "return the maximum of two numbers". The first parameter is 10 and the second parameter is 20. Note how the parameters "10" and "20" are divided by a comma. Result would be assigned the value 20. Of the numbers 10 and 20, 20 is the highest or maximum.

Along with operators and numeric variables, an arithmetic expression can contain any function which returns a numeric value. If a compound statement contains such a function then this function is evaluated before the rest of the statement.

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