A Modula-3 Tutorial

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Welcome!

This is a whirlwind tour of writing Modula-3 programs. By reviewing this tutorial, you will:

• Learn about basic Modula-3 language constructs, and look at some examples
• Find out more about basic interfaces provided in standard libraries

This tutorial assumes you already know how to use the CM3-IDE environment. To learn more about CM3-IDE, read the User Guide. For basic information about CM3-IDE, see Getting Started.

Table of Contents

• Writing Programs
• The Main Module
• The Makefile
• A Simple Makefile
• Basic Makefile Commands
• Other Makefile Commands

• Language Elements
• Modules and Interfaces
• Interface
• Implementation
• Imports
• IMPORT Statement
• Declarations
• Declarations Examples
• Constants
• Types
• Ordinal Types
• Array Types
• Record Types
• Object Types
• Set Types
• Reference Types
• Procedure Types
• Variables
• Procedures
• Exceptions
• Statements
• Assignment Statements
• Procedure Call and Return Statements
• Selection Statements
• IF Statement
• CASE Statement
• TYPECASE Statement
• Looping Statements
• FOR Statement
• WHILE Statement
• REPEAT Statement
• LOOP Statement
• EXIT Statement
• Compound Statements
• Block
• WITH Statement
• Error Handling Statements
• RAISE Statement
• TRY-EXCEPT Statement
• TRY-FINALLY Statement
• Expressions
• Expression Building Blocks
• Arithmetic Expressions
• Logical Expressions
• Relational Expressions
• Constructors
• Set Constructor
• Array Constructor
• Record Constructor
• Operator Precedence
• Pragmas
• INLINE Pragma
• ASSERT Pragma
• TRACE Pragma
• FATAL Pragma
• UNUSED Pragma
• OBSOLETE Pragma
• NOWARN Pragma
• Compiling and Running Programs
• Simple Compile Example
• Multiple-Package Example
• m3build Options
• Some Basic Libraries
• String Routines
• Text Interface
• Fmt Interface
• Scan Interface
• I/O Routines
• I/O Examples
• IO Interface
• Rd Interface
• Wr Interface
• Lex Interface
• Misc Routines
• Params Interface
• Env Interface

Where to get more information?

To learn more about Modula-3 and CM3, see:

Getting Started: If you are not familar with the CM3-IDE environment you may start from Getting Started, which contains all-around information about the CM3-IDE environment.

User Guide: If you have basic familiarity with CM3-IDE, but would like to learn more about how to use it, read the User Guide.

CM3-IDE Examples: More than twenty ready-to-built, documented programs demonstrate the use of everything from portable operating system interfaces, to network objects, to web-server toolkit. If you have learned the basics of the CM3-IDE environment and would like to get some hands-on experience with it, review the CM3-IDE Examples.

Interface Index: If you would like to read an overview of the standard Modula-3 libraries, visit the Interface Index. There is also a complete reference of all available interfaces and modules.

Trestle By Example: Trestle is a portable windowing system. GUI applications written using Trestle work transparently on top of Unix X Window System (X11) and Microsoft Windows (Win32). If you would like to learn more about Trestle and the available collection of Widgets, read Trestle By Example.

Language Reference To see a precise definition of the Modula-3 Programming Language see the Language Reference.

Books and Articles: More than 50 books and articles are listed in a comprehensive, annotated bibliography. There is also a concise version.

• CM3-IDE Help Pages
• CM3-IDE Examples
• Modula-3 Internet Resources.