The GET–KEY–VALUE and PUT–KEY–VALUE statements allow you to read or write a specified value for any resource by accessing the registry or an initialization file. The registry consists of sections called keys and subkeys arranged in a hierarchy. Keys and subkeys contain value entries, each of which consists of a value name and value data. Initialization files, by contrast, consist of a single level of sections. Sections contain entries, each of which consists of a name, an equals sign (=), and a value.

For example, to retrieve the Windows definition for font 8 from the current environment, which might be the registry or an initialization file, use a statement that returns the initial environment definition for font 8 in the FontString variable. For example:

To specify "Times New Roman" as the new definition for font 8 in Windows, you might enter this statement, which sets the font8 parameter in the current environment: