To provide the number of arguments passed with each invocation of a procedure or function.
Integer
Num_arguments carries the number of arguments passed to a function or procedure. It can be used only within a function or procedure. Its value can change with each invocation of the function or procedure.
Function Mean Global Integer i1 Integer i2 Integer i3 Returns Integer
integer iArgs
move Num_Arguments to iArgs
if (iArgs=3) Function_Return ((i1 + i2 + i3) / iArgs)
else if (iArgs=2) Function_Return ((i1 + i2) / iArgs)
else if (iArgs=1) Function_Return i1
else Function_Return 0
End_Function
In this example, the function Mean is defined using three parameters, integers i1, i2, and i3. The Function_Return statement contains an expression to calculate the mean of the values input. The function for calculating the return value uses Num_Arguments to provide a value appropriate to the number of arguments passed with each invocation.
Num_arguments is a local variable. That is, it is local to each function or procedure. Therefore, a variable of that name might concurrently have different values in two or more functions or procedures.