This section describes new programming language features introduced in this version of Caché.
The Basic Scripting Language
According to some estimates, half of the world's professional developers are familiar with the Basic programming language. To make it easy for those developers to be immediately productive with Caché, this release introduces Basic as an additional scripting language.
Basic is implemented as a native language within the Caché engine; Basic code is compiled into efficient object code that is completely compatible with object code generated from Caché ObjectScript. The syntax is essentially a subset of the functionality provided by the VBScript implementation of Basic. You can use Basic to implement methods in Caché classes. Within Basic you can directly access globals and objects, and can interoperate with Caché ObjectScript.
Basic is supported on every platform supported by Caché.
Defining Methods in Basic
Basic is designed to be used as implementation language for methods within Caché classes. Caché Studio offers complete support for Basic including syntax coloring. To create a method using Basic, simply set the language keyword for the method to “basic”:
Method MakeString(x As %Integer) As %String [language = basic]
{
   txt = ""
   For i = 1 To x
      txt = txt & i
   Next

   Return txt
}
You can also set the class-level language keyword to “basic” to make Basic the default language for all methods within a class:
Class MyApp.MyClass Extends %RegisteredObject [language = basic]
{
Method MakeString(x As %Integer) As %String
{
   txt = ""
   For i = 1 To x
      txt = txt & i
   Next

   Return txt
}
}
For a detailed list of available Basic commands and functions refer to the Caché Basic Reference.
Caché ObjectScript Language Enhancements
In this release, the Caché ObjectScript Language has the following enhancements: