This section should serve as a reference manual concerning the hoc language, which is used for the analysis tasks.
Hoc means high order calculator, and is a modified
version of Kernighan's interpretative arithmetic language, as
described in [ker84]. It has been modified in several respects to
make it suitable for physical data processing. The similarity to the
C programming language has been enhanced, new operators have
been introduced, and special built-in functions for histogramming,
''cutting'', and data selection have been added.
Eventually, hoc will become ''as close to C as possible, but no
closer'' [str93]. This reference manual here describes the
proposed version 1.0. Versions prior to 1.0 may lack some language
elements, but this will be indicated and should only have minor
impact on the language abilities.
All arithmetic is performed using double precision, i.e. 8-byte IEEE floating point values. This is also the only data type available inside hoc. There are no integers, logicals or character variables available ! There are, however, integer looking constants as well as string constants enclosed in double quotes.