The INCLUDE statement

Purpose

To facilitate reusing code, Ampersand allows its user to divide code over different files.

Description

The INCLUDE-statement includes the code of another Ampersand-script or the data of a .xlsx-file into the context.

Examples

INCLUDE "foo.adl"
INCLUDE "subdirectory/foo.adl"
INCLUDE "bar.xlsx"

Syntax and meaning

INCLUDE <filename>

This statement specifies files that need to be included before compiling. The filename is given in double quotes, including a path that is relative to the position of the main adl-file. The main adl-file is the file that is called with the command Ampersand.

Possible files to include are:

• other adl-files

• xlsx-files to include population

All code in the included adl-files will become part of the context of the main adl-file.

Make sure to include the adl-files before including xlsx-files.

Included files may contain INCLUDEstatements themselves. The files mentioned there are treated as though they were included in the main file. So their code is also part of the same context. Nested adl-files can have their own xlsx-files included.

For formatting your excel-file see the text on the Excel Importer.