Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2026 12:29:12 +1000
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Subject: Re: Defining words in more than one step
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From: dxf <dxforth@gmail.com>
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On 13/06/2026 4:46 pm, Anton Ertl wrote:
> dxf <dxforth@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> On 13/06/2026 4:22 am, Anton Ertl wrote:
>>> anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) writes:
>>> But while we are at it, according to Andrew Haley early Forth had USE
>>> with the same functionality as SET-DOES>.
> 
> Actually, he wrote in <KZadnaZ99qHVrl7LnZ2dnUU7-S2dnZ2d@supernews.com>:
> 
> | That's not wildly different from polyFORTH II, which had USE:
> | 
> |     CREATE FOO  ... blah ...   <address> USE
> | 
> | USE takes the address of some runtime code and patches it into the
> | code field of the most recent definition.  I think that syntax is a
> | little more pleasant than your above.
> 
> So it's probably like Gforth's SET-EXECUTE (which takes a machine-code
> address), not like Gforth's SET-DOES> (which takes an xt).  And
> polyForthII is not that early.

I looked into it, and yes, pF has USE.  But it may be of limited use.
It's not documented in the manual (polyFORTH ISD-4 dated 1986).  I only
noticed it from a disassembly.  The only info/usage I was able to glean
being:

  : USE ( A -- )  LAST @ @ CFA ! ;

  : (;CODE)  R> USE ;

  CREATE (PEXPECT) WAIT USE

  : CODE  CREATE HERE USE ASSEMBLER ;