using functions can be hazerdous to your health

[martinwcole]

Finian and I both noticed that when you edit a function, unless you close Alpha and reopen, the edited version does not run - the original version runs
Has anyone else noticed this - or it may be my computer of version of V12 (using 2614)

[DaveM]

Re: using functions can be hazerdous to your health

You are correct! Had a few issues with that.

[SNusa]

Re: using functions can be hazerdous to your health

Explains some odd behavior I recently experienced. Also on two recent occasions: I would have sworn that edits to duplicated functions ended up in the wrong version/name. Could have been my mistake though. The other thing is: Seems to be some session issues going on while developing too/still. (relative to editing/running forms, where extra orphaned sessions are generated)

[Ray in Capetown]

Re: using functions can be hazerdous to your health

v12 12.3 rel 2446 WIN 10

Here I have never had this problem editing udf. Just tried again to make sure,
That would be so frustrating that one would know it happening for sure.

I have experience a similar thing though, but with adding a new udf a couple of weeks back. It appeared as there but not usable until restarting Alpha

[martinwcole]

Re: using functions can be hazerdous to your health

Ray,
That behavior has been around for years. Make a new function, go to interactive and start typing and it does not show up - until you restart the app.

I only ran into the edit issue this week. May be related to newer builds. I don't recall seeing it before. Any way, for what I am working on now I am changing them to scripts.

[Ray in Capetown]

Re: using functions can be hazerdous to your health

So it's a newly introduced error. You will have to be subscribed to get the fix.
I reverted back the release that seems to work

[Tom Henkel]

Re: using functions can be hazerdous to your health

Has anyone reported this to Alpha?

[Bob Whitaker]

Re: using functions can be hazerdous to your health

You would think that control panel refresh button should do the job but I know from experience it doesnt.

Bob

[CALocklin]

Re: using functions can be hazerdous to your health

I'm willing to bet that everyone who is having this problem is creating a function like this:

[some "external" code to run the function for testing]
FUNCTION MyFunction as C ()

[function code]

END FUNCTION

Try this instead:

FUNCTION MyFunction as C ()

[function code]

END FUNCTION
[some "external" code to run the function for testing]

I've never had a problem as long as there is no code - and preferably no comments - before the FUNCTION line. But I guarantee you that if you do put code before the FUNCTION command, it will create exactly the problem you describe. I believe I've even posted this somewhere before. I'll add it to my A5 Function Notes help file next time I update it. (If you look at the History page in that help file you will see that I update it fairly frequently so you might want to check it every month or so. And I'm always willing to accept new info to add to it if you send it my way.)

Edit: Oops, that info was already in my A5 Function Notes.

[MoGrace]

Re: using functions can be hazerdous to your health

I wonder if Cal's tip also effects why the description often fails to show when using an UDF in the IW...

[MoGrace]

Re: using functions can be hazerdous to your health

It would seem the Date stamp in Preferences may be the culprit as well. I turned off this feature and now when editing an UDF, I delete that info and my edited functions now run fine in the IW.

[CALocklin]

Re: using functions can be hazerdous to your health

It would seem the Date stamp in Preferences may be the culprit as well. I turned off this feature and now when editing an UDF, I delete that info and my edited functions now run fine in the IW.

I use the date stamp all the time and have never seen a problem with it. Perhaps there is something about the way yours was set up vs. mine?

I have "Include" set to Yes and "User Name Preference" set to Specified Name.

(Then there's always the "because it's a computer" possibility. I gave a customer my AutoHotKeys routine so I could use it when working on his computer. It worked fine for a few months and now something has changed so that those hot keys and shortcut keys work fine everywhere but in Alpha and we can't figure out why. They still work fine in all versions of A5 on my computer.)

[MoGrace]

Re: using functions can be hazerdous to your health

I had mine set up the same way. It probably has more to do with the way I used to write functions...most of my updates are on old converted action scripts or just to improve poorly written code.

[pboomwork]

Re: using functions can be hazerdous to your health

I recently wrote a script for editing User Defined functions in the A5 runtime. That is it allows end users with the runtime to create and end their own global functions with certain limitations. They can then use the these functions anywhere they can enter their own expressions. You can find this script in the code section of the forum.

In the process I learned quite a bit about the how A5 uses functions. I'll repeat the related comments from my code below. I don't know what is happening in Martin's case but the information may share some light on the subject. The code has a lot more information on this and functions that directly work with the data dictionary. I feel this is all quite well documented in the code if anyone is interested.

'Functions can be stored in the data dictionary as individual Global User Defined Functions
' these functions are loaded into the global variable name space at start up.
'Function(s) can be defined within scripts or even other functions
' these functions are loaded into the local variable name space when the function
' or script that houses them is loaded.
'A function defined in the standard A5 code editor is not available for use till it is
' saved this places it in the data dictionary, refreshes the control panel (so it is visable)
' and loads it into the global variable namespace (AKA global frame).
'Refreshing the control panel does not load a script into the global variable space. This
' is only done when the script is saved and has no syntax errors or when the udf_define() function is used.

'C udf_define(c udf_code[,p variable space])
' Adds the Xbasic statements, which define a function, to the list of UDFs in the specified variable namespace
' udf_code is a character string containing the text version of the function
' the text can be retrieved from the data dictionary using udf_load()

'C udf_drop(c udf_name[,c password])
' Drop a udf (must include password if dropping protected udf)
' Erases a UDF from the data dictionary, UDF remains available in global variable name space.
' This same effect is seen when a function is deleted from the Control Panel

'a5_check_syntax(c code [,l silent [,l return_error_message ]])
' Check syntax of some xbasic code. Recuses into %code% blocks.
' Returns first error encountered
' The editor used A5_MODELESS_CODE_EDITOR and A5_SCRIPT_CREATE_NEW does no syntax checking
' this function is used when the refresh button is pressed to check for syntax errors.
' Syntax errors will prevent UDFs from loading into the variable frame
' and the old UDF will remain and function
' This can cause hard to diagnose problems so best advise users

[martinwcole]

Re: using functions can be hazerdous to your health

On Windows 7, Alpha V12, I can write a brand new function the normal way - from the control panel
Then, maybe 2 days later, I can modify the function, and more than 50% of the time I have to close and reopen Alpha before the change will run, instead of the original.