The DAL function formats range from no arguments to two arguments. Within these basic format structures, individual functions can accept varied argument element. The following tables illustrate for each function the elements allowed.

In the tables, the term "key" is a generic term referring to VMS descriptors that specify a global name, local name, global directory, or a subscript. The mode that always precedes keys, describes the actual meaning of the keys to GT.M. The number of keys specified in the argument must match the actual number of keys in the array. Some of the syntaxes actually allow the designation of multiple key (resource) names.