AT (instruction)

The AT command is used to swap the values of two string variables. In practice, the reference of the first variable are assigned to the second and vice versa, in a single operation, and without memory movement. Infact, the AT command actually performs a similar operation at the machine level, but more efficiently and hidden from the programmer.

The AT command makes code more concise and readable by avoiding the use of a temporary variable for swapping. Using this command is a fundamental operation in many sorting algorithms with array of strings, such as bubble sort. In general, swapping strings is a common operation in many programs, and AT provides a simple and efficient way to do it. This command can only be used with variables of the type string.

EXAMPLE

 a$ = "primo" : b$ = "secondo"
 AT a$, b$
 PRINT a$, b$