A BASIC program is a series of lines containing instructions for the BASIC compiler. A BASIC program line can contain a line number, one or more statements, an optional comment field, and a line terminator. LINE is also a special immediate mode variable that allows the user to determine what statement was executing if a program was interrupted. For example, if a CTRL/C is typed when a program was executing line 100, the immediate mode statement PRINT LINE would display 100.
1 – Ampersand
An ampersand (&), followed immediately by a carriage return, allows you to continue a BASIC statement on the next line.
2 – Backslash
The backslash statement separator (\) separates statements in a multi-statement line.
3 – Continuation
BASIC statements can be continued to the next text line if they end with an ampersand (&) immediately followed by a line terminator.
4 – Length
A text line (numbered line or continuation line) can contain up to 255 characters.
5 – Numbers
Line numbers are optional; you can compile, link and run a BASIC program without specifying line numbers. BASIC line numbers are positive whole numbers in the range 1 to 32767, inclusive. Numbers outside this range, fractional line numbers, and line numbers with embedded spaces or tabs generate errors. Line numbers with percent signs are flagged as a declining feature when the /FLAG=DECLINING qualifier is enabled. Leading zeroes are ignored. If you have a line-numberless program that contains multiple program units, the point at which BASIC breaks each program unit is determined by the placement of the statement that terminates the program unit. Any text that follows the program terminator becomes associated with the following program unit. A program terminator can be any END statement such as an END PROGRAM statement followed by any valid expression.
6 – Terminators
A carriage return/line feed sequence (<RETURN>) ends a program line.