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% <BEEBE.EPSILON>TECOTINY.LTX.20,  3-Jun-86 10:20:56, Edit by BEEBE
% this is part of TECO.LTX

  I promised in an early chapter that it is possible to learn a small
part of \TECO{} and still do useful work.  Here is a stepwise guide to
an ever-expanding subset of the language.  You should consult the
language reference section beginning on page~\pageref{lang-ref} for the
details and examples; the summary here is intended to be brief, so as
not to overwhelm you.

A preliminary word of advice---you are going to make mistakes, and some
of them will be whoppers that totally trash your edit buffer.  Just two
little characters, {\tiny \T{HK}}, will empty the buffer
irrevocably.  {\em Therefore}, before you execute a \TECO{} program,
{\em save} the edit buffer!  If you have a disaster, a quick
\EC{revert-file} will put things right back to their state at the time
of the save.

To begin with, you need to know eight basic functions:
 \begin{flushleft}
   \begin{tabular}{|l|}
     \hline
     \mbox{}\\
     \begin{minipage}[t]{\linewidth}
       \begin{commandtable}
	\item[\DOT]
		Current value of \POINT{}.
	\item[nC]
		Move \POINT{} \T{n} characters forward.
	\item[nD]
		Delete \T{n} characters.
	\item[Istring\A{ESC}]
		Insert text.
	\item[nJ]
		Move \POINT{} to absolute position \T{n}.
	\item[m,nK]
		Kill range of characters.
	\item[Sstring\A{ESC}]
		Search for a string.
	\item[Z]
		Current buffer size.
       \end{commandtable}
     \end{minipage}\\
     \mbox{}\\
     \hline
   \end{tabular}
 \end{flushleft}


Next, you can augment this set with line-oriented commands:
 \begin{flushleft}
   \begin{tabular}{|l|}
     \hline
     \mbox{}\\
     \begin{minipage}[t]{\linewidth}
       \begin{commandtable}
	\item[nL]
		Move to beginning of $\T{n}^{th}$ line from \POINT{}.
	\item[nK]
		Kill from point  to beginning of $\T{n}^{th}$ following
		line.
       \end{commandtable}
     \end{minipage}\\
     \mbox{}\\
     \hline
   \end{tabular}
 \end{flushleft}

Then you can add looping:
 \begin{flushleft}
   \begin{tabular}{|l|}
     \hline
     \mbox{}\\
     \begin{minipage}[t]{\linewidth}
       \begin{commandtable}
	\item[n;]
		Exit loop if $\T{n} \geq 0$.
	\item[n<]
		Begin \T{n}-iteration loop.
	\item[>]
		End loop.
       \end{commandtable}
     \end{minipage}\\
     \mbox{}\\
     \hline
   \end{tabular}
 \end{flushleft}

With the addition of conditionals, you have the basic requirements of
any programming language (sequential, repetitive, and conditional
execution):
 \begin{flushleft}
   \begin{tabular}{|l|}
     \hline
     \mbox{}\\
     \begin{minipage}[t]{\linewidth}
       \begin{commandtable}
	\item[n"x]
		Begin the {\em then} part of a conditional.  The
		code up to the next matching apostrophe is
		executed if the argument \T{n} satisfies the
		condition defined by the \T{x}, one of the
		letters \T{A} (alphabetic), \T{D} (digit), \T{E}
		(equal to zero), \T{G} (greater than zero), \T{L}
		(less than zero), \T{N} (non-zero), or \T{U} (not
		lower-case letter).
 	\item["\#]
		Begin the {\em else} part of a conditional.  The code up
		to the next matching apostrophe is executed if the
		condition on the {\em then} part was not satisfied.
	\item[']
		End the {\em then} or {\em else} part of a conditional.
       \end{commandtable}
     \end{minipage}\\
     \mbox{}\\
     \hline
   \end{tabular}
 \end{flushleft}

The next step is to add Q-registers, so you can store results.  First
you need number storage and retrieval:
 \begin{flushleft}
   \begin{tabular}{|l|}
     \hline
     \mbox{}\\
     \begin{minipage}[t]{\linewidth}
       \begin{commandtable}
	\item[nUq]
		Put number \T{n} in Q-register \T{q}.
	\item[Qq]
		Get the number from Q-register \T{q}.
       \end{commandtable}
     \end{minipage}\\
     \mbox{}\\
     \hline
   \end{tabular}
 \end{flushleft}

After awhile, you will probably want to store text in Q-registers too:
 \begin{flushleft}
   \begin{tabular}{|l|}
     \hline
     \mbox{}\\
     \begin{minipage}[t]{\linewidth}
       \begin{commandtable}
	\item[:Iqstring\A{ESC}]
		Put \T{string} in Q-register \T{q}.
	\item[Gq]
		Get \T{string} from Q-register \T{q} into edit buffer.
	\item[m,nXq]
		Copy text characters $\T{m}+1\ldots \T{n}$ from edit
		buffer into Q-register \T{q}.
       \end{commandtable}
     \end{minipage}\\
     \mbox{}\\
     \hline
   \end{tabular}
 \end{flushleft}

Lastly, you might need to convert numbers to strings, and vice versa:
 \begin{flushleft}
   \begin{tabular}{|l|}
     \hline
     \mbox{}\\
     \begin{minipage}[t]{\linewidth}
       \begin{commandtable}
	\item[n\BS]
		Insert printed decimal representation of number \T{n}
		into edit buffer.
	\item[\BS{}Uq]
		Convert digit string in the buffer to a number stored
		in Q-register \T{q}.
       \end{commandtable}
     \end{minipage}\\
     \mbox{}\\
     \hline
   \end{tabular}
 \end{flushleft}

You have now learned 23 function variants and should be able to do a lot
with them.  Since many commands allow colon and \T{@} modifiers, if you
learn what they do for just this subset, you can probably triple your
\TECO{} repertoire.

The next time you have an editing job which does not seem to be handled
by this small set that you know, you can consult the function guide
section beginning on page~\pageref{function-guide}.  The table of
contents and the index should also help you find things.