PET VIC-20 C64 C16 Plus/4 C128 X16 M65

The DATA directive marks an area where numeric or string literal values are stored.

DATA AS <type> <value> [, <value> ...]

The DATA statement in XC=BASIC is different from the one in CBM BASIC. In XC=BASIC, there's no READ command to copy data into variables but DATA is typically used together with DIM to statically initialize a variable with values, like in the following example:

DIM squares(7) AS INT @lab_squares
PRINT squares(3) : REM -- outputs 9
lab_squares:
DATA AS INT 0, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36

The DIM statement in the first line defines the variable squares as an array of seven integers and tells the compiler that the address of the array is where the lab_squares label is. Therefore the array is already filled with the values after the DATA statement without the need of copying using READ.

When using DATA with strings, you have to denote the maximum string length. This doesn't mean that all strings must be of this length, it only gives a hint to the compiler how to align data in code. If a string is shorter than the denoted length, remaining memory will be padded with zero bytes. If a string is longer, it will be truncated to the maximum length. For example:

DIM x$(4) AS STRING * 5 @mydat
FOR i AS BYTE = 0 TO 3 : PRINT x$(i) : NEXT
mydat:
DATA AS STRING * 5 "hello", "thisistoolong", "abc", "world"

The above DATA area will be laid out in memory like this:

' First byte is string length
05 48 45 4C 4C 4F ' "hello"
05 54 48 49 53 49 ' truncated to "thisi"
03 41 42 43 00 00 ' "abc" + padding using 00 bytes
05 57 4F 52 4C 44 ' "world"

By default, data are separated from code in XC=BASIC. This means that anything defined in DATA statements will be placed in a separate segment that is located after the code segment, outside of the program flow. This means that you can place a DATA statement anywhere, it won't affect the generated program code. The following example is identical to the one above.

lab_squares:
DATA AS INT 0, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36
DIM squares(7) AS INT @lab_squares
PRINT squares(3) : REM -- outputs 9

There are situations, however, when you don't want to separate data from code and you need full control over where data is compiled (e. g using the ORIGIN directive). This is where the OPTION INLINEDATA (or, alternatively, the command line option --inline-data) comes in handy. Setting it to TRUE will make DATA statements compiled right where they're in the program flow. For example:

OPTION INLINEDATA
GOTO main
lab_squares:
DATA AS INT 0, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36
main:
DIM squares(7) AS INT @lab_squares
PRINT squares(3) : REM -- outputs 9

If the above example is compiled, data will precede the main program.