Chaga Programming Language: Chapter 3

Functions and Procedures

  • Functions and procedures allow one to define a series of programming statements as a subroutine. This technique promotes modularity and reduces code duplication.
  • Functions and procedures are invoked from a calling program using the CALL statement.
  • Functions and procedures both acccept zero or more inputs parameters.
  • Functions return one or more parameters to the calling program.
  • Procedures do not return a value to the calling program.

DEFINE statement

  • define datatatype function identifier (datatype parameter list) {statement block}
  • define procedure identifier (datatype parameter list) {statement block}

CALL statement

  • set identifier = call identifier (parameter list);

Example:

define int function read_keyboard (pointer buffer)
{
  declare num_bytes;
  [...]
  return num_bytes;
}

define procedure example (void)
{
  declare string input_buf;
  declare int num_bytes_read;
  [...]
  set num_bytes_read = call read_keyboard (input_buf.address);
}

Copyright © 2025, 2026 Robert James Bruce.

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