Boolean Switch-setting

'Switches' are an important logic element in many languages.  They allow the programmer to quickly and easily direct the flow of logic.  The classic IF-THEN-ELSE is even represented on flowcharts by the diamond-shaped 'switch box'.  The result is either true or false, '1' or '0'.  In fact, that classic IF-THEN-ELSE is very often used to set switches for later use when the values may have been changed by subsequent processing.  Switches often get set like this:

if A = B then sw.0equal = 1
         else sw.0equal = 0

There is another way, I think it's a better way, and it certainly cuts down on the keystroking, but it's not immediately obvious to newbies what's happening:

sw.0equal = A = B

Got it?  When A and B are equal — when 'A = B' is TRUE — sw.0equal gets set to '1', TRUE.  sw.0equal takes on the truth-value of the proposition 'A = B'.

My old friend, Ramon Faulk, taught me that trick back in the 1970s.  You have to be writing in a terse language like REXX or PL/I to be able to use it.  Good thing we're working in REXX, huh? ;-)

Note also that the content-addressible array "sw." is here suffixed with the glyph "0equal".  "0equal" is invalid as a variable name, so no maintainer can come along behind you, use "equal" as a variable, and dynamically redefine the meaning of "sw.equal".  I learned that one from Les Koehler, the first American to write a REXX program.  Unless you intend that content-addressible array suffix to be changeable, start it with any character that will prevent its use as a variable.