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1.1.1 An Overview of CoCoA Programming

The CoCoA system includes a full-fledged high level programming language, CoCoALanguage, complete with loops, branching, scoping of variables, and input/output control. The language is used whenever one issues commands during a CoCoA session. A sequence of commands may be stored in a text file and then read into a CoCoA session using the source command.

The most important construct in CoCoA programming is the user-defined function, created with define . A user-defined function can take any number of arguments, of any types, perform CoCoA commands, and return values. Collections of these functions can be stored in text files, as mentioned in the preceding paragraph, or formed into CoCoA packages, to be made available for general use.