Programmer Guide > Writing Procedures and Functions > Parameter Passing Mechanism
  

Parameter Passing Mechanism
Parameters are passed to system and user-written procedures and functions by value or by reference. It is important that you recognize the distinction between these two methods.
*Expressions, constants, system variables, and subscripted variable references are passed by value.
*Variables are passed by reference.
Parameters passed by value may only be inputs to program units; results may not be passed back to the caller via these parameters. Parameters passed by reference may convey information in either or both directions. For example consider this trivial procedure:
PRO ADD, A, B
A = A + B
RETURN
END
This procedure adds its second parameter to the first, returning the result in the first. The call:
ADD, A, 4
adds 4 to A and stores the result in variable A. The first parameter is passed by reference and the second parameter, a constant is passed by value. The call:
ADD, 4, A
does nothing because a value may not be stored in the constant “4” which was passed by value. No error message is issued.
Similarly, if ARR is an array, the call:
ADD, ARR(5), 4
does not achieve the desired effect (adding 4 to element ARR (5)) because subscripted variables are passed by value. A possible alternative is:
TEMP = ARR(5) 
ADD, TEMP, 4
ARR(5) = TEMP

Version 2017.0
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