If you look up the Main procedure in MapBasic Help you will see that it is defined as the first procedure called when MapBasic is run. In the last blog, A first look at MapBasic, a Note statement was compiled and run without using this Main procedure. In that case MapBasic was run in an implicit mode. The program assumed that you needed to also run the Main procedure and therefore automatically included it. If you want to run more complex programs you will need to explicitly use the Main procedure. A more detailed explanation of implicit and explicit requirements are given within MapBasic Help so I will not repeat it here. Also I would encourage you to use the help facility to build on your understanding of MapBasic.

Before you can use procedures such as Main within your MapBasic program you must first declare them. As show in the code below:-

You could save this example as a simple template for future programs. This saves having to repeatedly type the same code and also avoids potential syntax errors.

The Main procedure controls all the other sub procedures to ensure the program runs according to the programmer’s intention. For any procedure to work in must first be declared. The Declare function defines the name and parameter list of a function. Search for the Declare function in MapBasic Help and scroll down to the example section. Here you will find a program for calculating cubes which may help improve your understanding of some basic MapBasic programming concepts

This example below is a more simplified version which covers a number of features worthy of further discussion.

If you have used MapInfo then you are probably aware that there is a programming language available called MapBasic for development work.

You can now download MapBasic without charge from http://www.pbinsight.com/support/product-downloads/for/mapbasic.

​The MapBasic interface is not as sophisticated as say Visual Studio. For instance, there is no visual interface for creating dialogue boxes, buttons etc.  In fact the interface hasn’t really changed very much from the original version. However, there have been many upgrades to the functionality offered by MapBasic from a programmable view point.  These reflect improvements in MapInfo and the Windows operating system environment.

The above image shows the MapBasic interface when you first fire up the software. Most of the options are familiar if you have used Notepad or a similar product. Whilst the interface is minimal the underlying software program is very powerful.

If you are new to MapBasic I suggest you click on the Help tab and select Contents. This first page introduces MapBasic and also shows you what is covered by the help option. If you have never programmed before then you may not agree with the statement in this section that MapBasic is ‘an easy to use programming language.’ This statement applies more to how MapBasic compares with say  C++ or Pascal programming languages.

​Even if you have never programmed before, you should still be able to learn enough about MapBasic from the Help screens to achieve some success in automating common mapping requirements. Most features of the program have some code snippets explaining how to use them within the help section.