DIM (variable)

The DIM command is used to reserve a specific space in the computer's memory to hold data that you will use during the execution of your program. In particular, you can use DIM for a single variable

Declaring variables explicitly makes your code more readable and understandable, especially in longer programs. Specifying the data type prevents type errors when your program runs. You can initialize a variable when you declare it, giving it an initial value different by 0 (the ugBASIC default value). Moreover, when you need to use a particular data type (e.g. FLOAT for scientific calculations), it is advisable to explicitly declare the variable.

The scope of a variable declared with DIM depend on the context in which it is declared. It may be local to a procedure or global to the entire program. It is always a good practice to declare all variables at the beginning of a program or procedure to improve readability and maintainability of the code, and ugBASIC gives you the OPTION EXPLICIT directive to ensure that you use only defined variables.

Note that ugBASIC language, as other BASIC dialect, do not need to use DIM to declare a variable. The data type and scope is inferred from the context in which the variable is first used.

EXAMPLE

 DIM x AS INTEGER = 42, y AS BYTE = 21

Used in:
ACCESSING (1) ACCESSING (2) ACCESSING (3) ACCESSING (4) INITIALIZING SIERPINSKI CHALLENGE (optimized) SIERPINSKI CHALLENGE (final)