### 3.5.1 General command syntax

In SINGULAR a command is either a declaration, an assignment, a call to a function without return value, or a print command. The general form of a command is described in the following subsections.

#### Declaration

1. type name `=` expression `;`
   declares a variable with the given name of the given type and assigns the expression as initial value to it. Expression is an expression of the specified type or one that can be converted to that type. See Type conversion and casting.

2. `alias` type name
   Introduces name as an alternative, read-only name for another variable_name. Can only be used in procedure headings to avoid copying large data.

3. type name_list `=` expression_list `;`
   declares variables with the given names and assigns successively each expression of expression_list to the corresponding name of name_list. Both lists must be of the same length. Each expression in expression_list is an expression of the specified type or one that can be converted to that type. See Type conversion and casting.

4. type name `;`
   declares a variable with the given name of the given type and assigns the default value of the specific type to it.

See Names, for more information on declarations. See Data types, for a description of all data types known to SINGULAR.

    ring r;                   // the default ring
    poly f,g = x^2+y^3,xy+z2; // the polynomials f=x^2+y^3 and g=x*y+z^2
    ideal I = f,g;            // the ideal generated by f and g
    matrix m[3][3];           // a 3 x 3 zero matrix
    int i=2;                  // the integer i=2

#### Assignment

1. name `=` expression `;`
   assigns expression to name.

2. name_list `=` expression_list `;`
   assigns successively each expression of expression_list to the corresponding name of name_list. Both lists must be of the same length. This is not a simultaneous assignment. Thus, `f, g = g, f;` does not swap the values of `f` and `g`, but rather assigns `g` to both `f` and `g`.

A type conversion of the type of expression to the type of name must be possible. See Type conversion and casting.

An assignment itself does not yield a value. Hence, compound assignments like `i = j = k;` are not allowed and result in an error.

    f = x^2 + y^2 ;      // overrides the old value of f
    I = jacob(f);
    f,g = I[1],x^2+y^2 ; // overrides the old values of f and g

#### Function without return value

1. function_name [ `(` argument_list `)` ] `;`
   calls function function_name with arguments argument_list.

The function may have output (not to be confused with a return value of type string). See Functions. Functions without a return value are specified there to have a return type 'none'.

Some of these functions have to be called without parentheses, e.g., `help`, `LIB`.

      ring r;
      ideal i=x2+y2,x;
      i=std(i);
      degree(i);        // degree has no return value but prints output
    ==> // dimension (proj.)  = 0
    ==> // degree (proj.)   = 2

#### Print command

1. expression `;`
   prints the value of an expression, for example, of a variable.

Use the function `print` (or the procedure `show` from inout.lib) to get a pretty output of various data types, e.g., matrix or intmat. See print.

      int i=2;
      i;
    ==> 2
      intmat m[2][2]=1,7,10,0;
      print(m);
    ==>      1     7
    ==>     10     0

User manual for Singular version 4.4.1, 2025, generated by texi2html.