LOCAL

Purpose

Declare a memory variable or array local to the current procedure and optionally assign a data type and value

Syntax

LOCAL <variable1> [AS <datatype>] [, <variable2> [AS <datatype>] [,...]

See Also

DECLARE, DIMENSION, DISPLAY MEMORY, DO, Dynamically Loadable Modules, FUNCTION, IS_ARRAY(), NAMESPACE, NAMESPACE(), PRIVATE, PROCEDURE, PUBLIC, RELEASE, RESTORE, SAVE, SET LOCAL, SET STRICT, STORE, VARINFO()

Description

The LOCAL command declares memory variables or arrays to be local to a procedure, function or program. When the procedure, function or program returns, then all of the memory variables and arrays that were declared by the LOCAL command are released.

The memory variables are initially declared as logicals with the value .F.(if CLIPPER is set ON they are defined as 'U'). If the optional = <value> clause is included, then the specified value is assigned to the variable.

Memory variables and arrays declared with the optional AS <datatype> clause are subject to data type checking when a value is assigned. An attempt to assign a value of an incompatible data type will fail and return error 306. The following <datatype> values can be specified:

• ARRAY
• CHARACTER
• CLASSNAME
• CURRENCY
• DATE
• DATETIME
• LOGICAL
• NUMERIC
• OBJECT

LOCAL variables differ from PRIVATE variables in that a LOCAL variable is not visible to lower level procedures or functions.

See DECLARE or DIMENSION for more details on array declaration.

Example

local cTmpbuf
? cTmpbuf
.F.