POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.general : Empty value for variable : Re: Empty value for variable Server Time
24 Apr 2024 05:45:27 EDT (-0400)
  Re: Empty value for variable  
From: Bald Eagle
Date: 7 Feb 2023 06:40:00
Message: <web.63e237c35d560c741f9dae3025979125@news.povray.org>
"jr" <cre### [at] gmailcom> wrote:

> for YB's benefit, I think that may be just because the parser is so .. lenient
> elsewhere.  as you know, much POV-Ray code published here "skimps" on detail,
> the ';' terminator is rarely used (or "taken serious" even, I feel), meshes and
> such often omit the commas between neighbouring vector values etc.

This is true, and we have some benefits and some hardships because of that.
We have lazy programming practices, black-box variable types and unknown
castings, parser "surprises", and bits of mystery code and loose ends all over
the internals.

>  in fact,
> 'box {your ears}' would have sufficed ;-).


Oh, hardly.  There are days where you are simply unruly to the point where we
don't even know where to start figuring out what to do with you.   :P

  with the macro it's simply that
> w/out the commas, the parser would have no (literal) clue which of the args were
> omitted.

Indeed.  No idea how such things are typically handled in other languages.


> > There's also no way to write a macro with a variable number of arguments - it
> > has to be fixed.
> > But now that we have dynamic arrays, and indeed, mixed arrays, I think I'd opt
> > for passing an array of arguments in, and then having the macro analyze and
> > process the array.

> yes.  (dictionaries, too)

See?   Positively flabbergasting.   An in public, no less.
You and your Dark Magic.

../jrEvilSpells.sh >/dev/null 2>&1


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