Mailing Lists: Apple Mailing Lists
Image of Mac OS face in stamp
 
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: abs bug?

At 10:04 AM -0700 29/11/03, Robert Poland wrote:
On Nov 29, 2003, at 9:25 AM, Robert Poland wrote:

Is this a bug? From Satimage Dictionary.

set x to -44
abs x
x
--> -44

Robert,

Try
set x to -44
set x to abs x
x

that should reveal 44 as the answer. Also, if you removed the last line (x) of your code, it should display 44.


--
Chris Garaffa
email@hidden


Thanks Chris,

After I thought about it it was obvious. Should have realized that the dictionary was misleading me.

The dictionary wouldn't have misled you. Why would you think that? When you write "abs x" the result of that evaluation is put in a variable called "result", and that's what would display in the result window if you left out the last line. You didn't reassign the contents of "x", so it will still be -4. The fact that you put the "x" as the last line of the script means that you see the stored value of x in the result window, not the result of the "abs" evaluation. Nothing to do with the dictionary really. If you had an editor that would allow you to step through the code line by line and observe the variables and the result as you go, then you'd see that "abs x" does indeed return what you want. As Chris pointed out, you need to store the result in x (or a new variable) if you want to use it because values in the "result" variable are transitory and get expunged after the next line of code that returns a result has been executed.

- web
_______________________________________________
applescript-users mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives: http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/applescript-users
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
References: 
 >abs bug? (From: Robert Poland <email@hidden>)
 >Re: abs bug? (From: Chris Garaffa <email@hidden>)
 >Re: abs bug? (From: Robert Poland <email@hidden>)



Visit the Apple Store online or at retail locations.
1-800-MY-APPLE

Contact Apple | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2007 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.