QB64 Command Reference Guide - hardcopy

[lawsonm1]

Yes, I know I'm an old fuddy-duddy; but I still use my tried and true "GW-BASIC Reference" from 1990 by Don Inman & Bob Albrecht. Having an actual printed book is easier for me than keeping tabs open and going back and forth between them, and trying to keep up with what came from what. Anyway, does anyone know if there is a good command reference guide for QB64, in book form? Thanks, Mike

[bplus]

Hi lawsonm1,

No book, but you will find this: https://www.qb64.org/wiki/Main_Page
and the same can be found under Help on IDE menu all the way to the top right corner. Not only clear explanations but also plenty of code samples can be found in the Wiki.

The Wiki is a whole lot faster way to lookup stuff than leafing through pages in a book. On the contents page you will find keywords lists you need for various programming tasks. All the _Keywords are new since QB4.5, keywords without the underline prefix are compatible to QB4.5 code.

Old GW BASIC was my first PL on a personal computer. I remember in one or two programs I had pages of line number maps before the actual program of code lines started.

[lawsonm1]

Well, I went out on archive.org and bitsavers.org to look for some old BASIC books. I remember one book I had 35 years ago that had a really good bubble sort program. I ran it on my S-100 bussed, TRS-80 Model I, Level II machine, running L-DOS and Disk BASIC. I wish I had not thrown the book away. I'm also looking at hitting up some used book stores for old BASIC manuals. Yes the commands are all the same, but sometimes they have lot's of differing code examples. Thanks, Mike

[euklides]

A I have an old "Microsoft QuickBASIC 2.01" book (1985, in french), and it was very usefull to learn seriously basic...

Now...
* Look into your QB64 directory ...\qb64\internal\help... to see all the commands (in text files)

and also

* go to:  http://qb64.org/wiki/Keyword_Reference_-_Alphabetical#uA/

and my tip...

Personally I have a text file where I write down all the programming tips that I find and learn, as I go along. It's very useful...

[bplus]

It might be of help to take some old code examples say favorites from GW and rewrite them in more modern QB64 form?

Maybe someone has some smallish examples?

[MLambert]

Try  https://qb64.org/wiki/Keyword_Reference_-_Alphabetical

[lawsonm1]

I did a short search on archive.org for BASIC books, and came across quite a few that I downloaded. Many of the have code examples that could be useful. The option to download PDF with text seems to work to allow a copy and paste of the text, but since these are old and several of the code examples were from a dot matrix printer, there is a fair amount of cleanup required. I'm still looking for the old bubble sort program I used back in the mid-80s. It was humorously slow..... Mike

[lawsonm1]

Well, I kinda/sorta started putting together a reference guide for the commands, statements, and functions. I'm pulling stuff from the GW-BASIC website, the PC-BASIC website, and from the QB64 Wiki. I'm doing this solely for my use, and amusement, and nothing more. I am happy to post a PDF of it here. That said, if anyone has concerns over copyright issues, please let me know. I'm certainly not looking to sell it; just something I enjoy doing, and if it helps someone.... Thanks, Mike

BTW, it is nowhere complete. I just wanted to post something for comments or suggestions.