Information Technology - Programming Languages - Part 1: Modula- 2, Base Language

1.1 Goals

The goals of this part of ISO/IEC 10514 are: - to provide a rigorous definition of the language Modula-2 and its standard library by providing a mathematical model of both; - to provide a resolution of differences among interpretations of other descriptions of Modula-2 and its standard library, while endeavouring to preserve investment in existing practice; - to remove features thought to be redundant, inherently flawed, or inadequate; - to specify new language and standard library facilities where a need is perceived to exist; - to maintain the general principles of Modula-2 laid down by its inventor, while allowing for later modernization and standardization.

1.2 Specifications included in this part of ISO/IEC 10514

This part of ISO/IEC 10514 provides specifications for: - required symbols for Modula-2 program representation, including comments, literals, and source code directives; - the lexical structure, the syntactic structure and the semantics of Modula-2 programs, including programs that make use of system modules; - the interface to and the semantics of standard Modula-2 library modules; - those separate modules of the standard library that a conforming implementation is required to supply; - violations of the rules for use of the language, system modules and standard library modules that a conforming implementation is required to detect; - certain criteria for the size and complexity of programs that a conforming implementation must accept; - further compliance requirements for implementations, including documentation requirements.

1.3 Specifications not within the scope of this part of ISO/IEC 10514

This part of ISO/IEC 10514 provides no specifications for:
 

• the underlying representation of predefined data types (except in the case of packed set types; see 7.1.7.1);
• the method by which implementations are invoked (including identification of the program module and associated definition and implementation modules);
• the method by which compilation modules are stored (including the correspondence between module names and system file names where files are used);
• the method by which implementations accept input (including the encoding of source text and including the number of compilation modules accepted for each invocation);
• performance aspects of implementations, and certain quality aspects not covered by 1.2;
• the effect of executing a program that uses extensions to the language, extensions to system modules or extensions to standard library modules, or that otherwise deviates from this part of ISO/IEC 10514;
• the effect of continuing execution of a program in which an exception has occurred and execution has continued without an exception being raised;

the meaning of a program that relies on a definition of implementation-dependent values or implementation-dependent behaviour