I like your tip.  But I usually make up long key_words discribeing the
variable.

Ambis

"John VanSickle"  wrote in message:
> As you may have learned by now, if you re-use a variable name in your
> POV-Ray scripts, and then use that variable later, you have to make it
> the same type of thing both times, or POV-Ray will bomb out with an
> error.
>
> For instance,
>
>   #declare J=0;
>
> // other stuff
>
>   #declare J=<2,3,1>;
>
> will result in the error message "Attempted to redefine float
> identifier as vector identifier."
>
> I have found that adding a single character to the front of the
> variable name is of great help in avoiding this problem.  It prevents
> the example problem by forcing the two different values to be placed
> into different variables altogether.  Assuming that the first J is
> supposed to be a scalar, and the second a vector, the two declares
> would be written this way:
>
> #declare sJ = 0;
>
> #declare vJ=<2,3,1>;
>
> Not only does this prevent the aforementioned error from bringing your
> parsing to a grinding halt, it also helps you remember what a particular
> variable is supposed to be doing.
>
> This is especially helpful if you are working on a group project and
> need to understand the other people's scripts, and avoid clobbering
> the variables they're using.
>
> This convention rests on adding a lower-case letter to the start of all
> variable names, except for objects, and for including at least one
> upper-case letter after this point, to avoid conflicts with the reserved
> words in the POV-Ray scripting language.
>
> Anyway, here are the letters I'm using, and what they stand for:
>
> c = the total number of a group of objects (ie, count)
> f = a scalar representing a flag
> i = an index
> l = a scalar representing length
> p = a vector representing a specific point in space
> r = a scalar representing the radius of something
> s = a scalar
> v = a vector
>
> I don't use this method for naming pigments, textures, or materials,
> but I haven't had the name-collision problems with those.
>
> Hope this is found to be of use,
> John
> --
> ICQ: 46085459

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