User-defined functions

Functions are declared in the language by using the following syntax.

declare functionName: function TypeList  to Type;

For instance, to declare a function that computes the edit distance between two strings, use this syntax.

declare editDistance: string to string;

Originally, language functions took only one input parameter. Multi-parameter functions were specified by using an input record. For example, a simple function that concatenates two strings would be specified with the following syntax.

declare concat: function [ str1: string, str2: string ] to string;

However, the language now allows function declarations that contain multiple input parameters. Concatenation can also be defined as follows.

declare concat: function (string, string) to string;