BASIC V/VI private (or static) vars & arrays

When converting an old game of mine from Russell-branch BBC BASIC to ARM BASIC V, I had to replace private (static) variables with globals, which felt very unsatisfactory. Could private variables and arrays be (natively) introduced to ARM BASIC V/VI?

Here’s a link to the section in the ‘BBC BASIC for Windows’ docs regarding the PRIVATE statement:

http://www.rtrussell.co.uk/bbcwin/manual/bbcwin7.html#private

I use private variables quite a lot in my BB4W projects.

Among BASIC V/VI programmers/dabblers reading this, is there agreement that such an update would be a good and worthwhile thing?

Are there particular technical barriers to implementing private vars & arrays within the interpreter’s architecture?

(I now have the feeling that I’ve made the same or similar request here before. I should’ve checked first, so forgive me if I have!)

Can allocate memory, use a pointer to block that is LOCAL. Same for variables.

No, thanks. I wasn’t looking for a hack.

is there agreement that such an update would be a good and worthwhile thing?

Quite likely.

Are there particular technical barriers to implementing private vars

I cannot see any problem doing it just as BB4W does. It would be a moderately deep change.

B****t does its own thing, because it operates outside the interpreter. It does not have a PRIVATE keyword, but you can have variables private to both a routine and a library using LOCAL LIST.

You can achieve something similar in plain BASIC using the ‘magic’ pointers to the grave (`) list of variables or the underscore (_) list, even if it is a bit clumsy:

DEFPROCmyProc
 IF FN_PRIVATE(myProc) THEN
  `a%+=1:`b%(1)=9:REM main calls
 ELSE
  `a%=0:DIM `b%(9):REM first call
 ENDIF
 PRINT `a%,`b%(1)
 PROC_PRIVATE(myProc)
ENDPROC
DEFFN_PRIVATE(RETURN list%)
 SWAP list%,!&8580:REM grave list
=!&8580
DEFPROC_PRIVATE(RETURN list%)
 SWAP list%,!&8580
ENDPROC

is there agreement that such an update would be a good and worthwhile thing?

Quite likely.

I hope the guys at ROOL will seriously considerate it. Maybe a new bounty could be proposed? :-)

You can achieve something similar in plain BASIC using the ‘magic’ pointers to the grave (`) list of variables or the underscore (_) list, even if it is a bit clumsy:

Thank you, and not wishing to sound unappreciative of your stopgap solution (which I’ll play with later), I think I’ll hold out for a ‘proper’ native implementation of the PRIVATE statement – should one ever arrive!