NBS Minimal BASIC Test Programs

Abstract:

The

This publication describes the set of programs developed by NBS for the pur po se of testing conformance of implementations of the computer language BASIC to the American National Standard for Minimal BASIC, ANSI X3.60-1978. Department of Commerce has adopted this ANSI standard as Federal Information Processing Standard 68. By submitting the programs to a candidate implementation, the user can test the various features which an implementation must support in order to conform to the standard. While some programs can determine whether or not a given feature is correctly implemented, others produce output which the user must then interpret to some degree. This manual describes how the programs should be used SO as to interpret correctly the of tests. Such interpretation depends strongly on a solid understanding of the conformance rules laid down in the standard, and there is a brief discussion of these rules and how they relate to the test programs and to the various ways in which the language may be implemented.

results

the

Key words: BASIC; language processor testing; Minimal BASIC; programming language standards; software standards; software testing

Acknowledgments: Version 2 owes its existence to the efforts and example of many many people. Dr. David Gilsinn and Mr. Gilsinn and Mr. Charles deserve

1*,

credit

Sheppard, the authors of version for construction of that first system, of which version 2 is a refinement. In addition, they were generous in their advice on many of the pitfalls to avoid on the second iteration. Mr. Landon Dyer assisted with the testing and document preparation. It is al so important to thank the many people who sent in comments and suggestions on Version 1. We hope that all the users of the resulting Version 2 will help us improve it further.

* issued as an NBS Internal Report; no longer available.