[Oberon] FPGA - Inline Patterns

[Paul Reed]

Hi Tomas,

> $..$ helps with me testing Bitmaps.CopyPattern, I pass various patterns
> defined in Display.Mod to it.
>
> In various languages, FORTRAN, BASIC, there is DATA statement. ...
> If I needed a persistent constant block of data, could I use
> CONST somehow? What is the recommended way?

That's precisely what the HexString $..$ format was added for, although as
Andreas points out it's definitely not "standard".  You can use a
HexString wherever a string is acceptable, e.g. as a procedure parameter,
a string assignment or comparison expression, or as a CONST string
(although be aware there is no compression of the constant space).

It would have been overkill to add a Bitmaps loader, like the Fonts
loader, for such small, fixed bitmaps.  But for slightly larger data
structures Fonts is a good example.  After all, the data may be better
managed on the heap than in the module space.

I think it depends on exactly what you want to do.

HTH
Paul