Declarations

A variable declaration may give an initial value to a variable,


\begin{elan} INT VAR middle :: ( 1 + max ) DIV 2 \end{elan}

otherwise its initial value is undefined, as in


\begin{elan} VAR x \end{elan}

Two or more variable declarations can be combined into one unit


\begin{elan} VAR left pointer :: 1 , right pointer :: max , middle pointer \end{elan}

A constant declaration must give an initial value to a constant


\begin{elan} INT CONST small :: 4711 ; TEXT CONST capital :: ''monaco'' \end{elan}

Each execution of a declaration causes a new elaboration of the initialization. In this way a constant may have a different value after each declaration executed. The term ``constant'' is therefore somewhat misleading: its value is not changeable by an assignment, therefore it is constant over part or all of the program.