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Identifiers

Submitted by taoyue on Thu, 01/06/2011 - 20:36

Identifiers are names that allow you to reference stored values, such as variables and constants. Also, every program and unit must be named by an identifier.

Rules for identifiers:

  • Must begin with a letter from the English alphabet.
  • Can be followed by alphanumeric characters (alphabetic characters and numerals) and possibly the underscore (_).
  • May not contain certain special characters, many of which have special meanings in Pascal.
    ~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) + ` - = { } [ ] : " ; ' < > ? , . / |
Different implementations of Pascal differ in their rules on special characters. Note that the underscore character (_) is usually allowed.

Several identifiers are reserved in Pascal as syntactical elements. You are not allowed to use these for your identifiers. These include but are not limited to:

and array begin case const div do downto else end file for forward function goto if in label mod nil not of or packed procedure program record repeat set then to type until var while with

Modern Pascal compilers ship with much functionality in the API (Application Programming Interfaces). For example, there may be one unit for handling graphics (e.g. drawing lines) and another for mathematics. Unlike newer languages such as C# and Java, Pascal does not provide a classification system for identifiers in the form of namespaces. So each unit that you use may define some identifiers (say DrawLine) which you can no longer use. Pascal includes a system unit which is automatically used by all programs. This provides baseline functionality such as rounding to integer and calculating logarithms. The system unit varies among compilers, so check your documentation. Here is the system unit documentation for Free Pascal Compiler.

Pascal is not case sensitive! (It was created in the days when all-uppercase computers were common.) MyProgram, MYPROGRAM, and mYpRoGrAm are equivalent. But for readability purposes, it is a good idea to use meaningful capitalization. Most programmers will be on the safe side by never using two capitalizations of the same identifiers for different purposes, regardless of whether or not the language they're using is case-sensitive. This reduces confusion and increases productivity.

Identifiers can be any length, but some Pascal compilers will only look at the first several characters. One usually does not push the rules with extremely long identifiers or loads of special characters, since it makes the program harder to type for the programmer. Also, since most programmers work with many different languages, each with different rules about special characters and case-sensitivity, it is usually best to stick with alphanumeric characters and the underscore character.