& in procedure parameter - Purpose of "&"?

Question

Hi All, What is the purpose of "&" in 1& in the following procedure call?

   sndPlaySound32(WhatSound, 1&)

Answer 1

It tells the compiler the second parameter is a long and not just an int.

This is needed for cases where the host language doesn't have an explicit knowledge of the API or the call isn't declared manually so that type-conversion can happen properly.

The full list of sigils that can be used include the following; generally @ and $ aren't used for API calls.

• @ = Decimal
• # = Double (8 bytes)
• % = Integer (2 bytes)
• & = Long (4 bytes)
• ! = Single (4 bytes)
• $ = String

Answer 2

The use of such type specifiers is deprecated, but for the record these are the different variable types:

& Long
% Integer
# Double
! Single
@ Decimal
$ String