Intrinsic Special Variable

A Intrinsic Special Variable is something you type into a MUMPS program, which fits into the syntax in the places that a variable normally would be used.

It is named a special variable because rather than just having the value that is given to it by the current running MUMPS program, it has a value that is changing based on some internal ("intrinsic") logic that is provided by the MUMPS language implementation.

Intrinsic special variables have a syntax that is similar to that of functions in the MUMPS language. Their names start with the dollar sign character "$" and are some alphabetic letters, without any difference in name based on whether they are upper case letters or lower case letters.

Examples of Intrinsic Special Variables are:

Special Variables

 * $D[EVICE ]
 * $EC[ODE ]
 * $ER[EF ]
 * $ES[TACK ]
 * $ET[RAP ]
 * $H[OROLOG ]
 * $I[O ]
 * $IOR[EFERENCE ]
 * $J[OB ]
 * $K[EY ]
 * $PD[ISPLAY ]
 * $PIOR[EFERENCE ]
 * $P[RINCIPAL ]
 * $Q[UIT ]
 * $R[EFERENCE ]
 * $ST[ACK ]
 * $S[TORAGE ]
 * $SY[STEM ]
 * $T[EST ]
 * $TL[EVEL ]
 * $TR[ESTART ]
 * $X
 * $Y

Notice that the above links are to pages provided by Jacquard Systems and are part of the MUMPS By Example written by Ed de Moel which is on the page: http://www.jacquardsystems.com/Examples/index.htm