One of my favorite 4D Jeopardy questions (oops, I mean answers) is “What is the number of commands in the 4D programming language?”. No one ever gets it right; they always guess far too low. There are now more than 500 commands in 4D version 6, and that’s not even counting
the plug-ins (4D Calc, 4D Chart, 4D Draw and 4D Write). With so many commands, and the nearly 500 constants, it is difficult for developers to remember everything about each one.

This technical note serves as documentation for my database of language information. This database contains five key pieces of information about each language element in 4D. The most obvious two are the command (or function) name and syntax. For ease of reference, the name of the chapter containing the item is also included. The other fields are a wildcard/shortcut field and a values field that serves a dual purpose, indicating command numbers or constant values.

In order to get the most value from this technical note, please open the accompanying database and work through it as you read.

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