Base files

In versions 2.7 and 2.71, the language contains 224 (previous versions had fewer) primitives, which are the commands preceded by an asterisk in the Index (Appendix I) to The {\mfsl META}{\mfsl FONT\/}book. From these we can build more complex operations, using macros. In macros have some of the desirable characteristics of functions in other languages. Collections of macros can be stored in source files.

Base files are precompiled internal tables that loads faster than it loads the original source files. Thus, they are closely analogous to TEX's format files.



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