I think I've found a VERY annoying bug in Povray 3.1d (unless it's
already been found..LOL)

It occurs during parsing, and seems to happen after a number of #while
.... #end commands.

Povray errors out with a message that it can't understand what "-" (or
"d") is. It seems to skip about 20 odd characters after the #end, then
resumes parsing...  eg - (NOT real code, but came from a Titanic
animation I'm trying to do)

#end
#declare Tit-Hull=union{sphere

This will error out will a message about "p" (in sp*here) being
undefined.

As you can imagine, I now can no longer render some of my files.
Does anyone have version 3.1c anywhere?

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Morpheus Dreamlord wrote:
> 
> I think I've found a VERY annoying bug in Povray 3.1d (unless it's
> already been found..LOL)
> 
> It occurs during parsing, and seems to happen after a number of #while
> .... #end commands.
> 
> Povray errors out with a message that it can't understand what "-" (or
> "d") is. It seems to skip about 20 odd characters after the #end, then
> resumes parsing...  eg - (NOT real code, but came from a Titanic
> animation I'm trying to do)
> 
> #end
> #declare Tit-Hull=union{sphere
> 
> This will error out will a message about "p" (in sp*here) being
> undefined.
> 
> As you can imagine, I now can no longer render some of my files.
> Does anyone have version 3.1c anywhere?


If you are really trying to use a " - " as a part of your declared
object name then you will get and error. Perhaps you should be
recieveing a different warning but I think what is happening is that
Pov goes through the loop until it processes all of the interations
and then starts looking for directions on how to proceed. At this
point it has been parsing for quite a while and then it hits a
directive from you to subtract Tit from Hull and starts looking for
the definition of the terms. Using Tit-Hull is an illegal operation
because the minus sign is a reserved symbol. You should instead use
an underscore like this #declare Tit_Hull = whatever .

-- 
Ken Tyler

mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net

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Umm, yes, sorry, I was typing quickly Tit_Hull is the name..lol.

What happens is Povray looks forward about 20 characters, then starts
parsing from that point, with obvious error messages (this happens on
other peoples scene files too, stuff that worked with 3.1a (I skipped b,
c, versions)

Ken wrote:
> 
> Morpheus Dreamlord wrote:
> >
> > I think I've found a VERY annoying bug in Povray 3.1d (unless it's
> > already been found..LOL)
> >
> > It occurs during parsing, and seems to happen after a number of #while
> > .... #end commands.
> >
> > Povray errors out with a message that it can't understand what "-" (or
> > "d") is. It seems to skip about 20 odd characters after the #end, then
> > resumes parsing...  eg - (NOT real code, but came from a Titanic
> > animation I'm trying to do)
> >
> > #end
> > #declare Tit-Hull=union{sphere
> >
> > This will error out will a message about "p" (in sp*here) being
> > undefined.
> >
> > As you can imagine, I now can no longer render some of my files.
> > Does anyone have version 3.1c anywhere?
> 
> If you are really trying to use a " - " as a part of your declared
> object name then you will get and error. Perhaps you should be
> recieveing a different warning but I think what is happening is that
> Pov goes through the loop until it processes all of the interations
> and then starts looking for directions on how to proceed. At this
> point it has been parsing for quite a while and then it hits a
> directive from you to subtract Tit from Hull and starts looking for
> the definition of the terms. Using Tit-Hull is an illegal operation
> because the minus sign is a reserved symbol. You should instead use
> an underscore like this #declare Tit_Hull = whatever .
> 
> --
> Ken Tyler
> 
> mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net

-- 

Politicians are lying, cheating, thieving, underhanded, corrupt,
unethical, unprincipled, degraded, venal, money-grabbing,
self-serving filth that should be killed on sight
(in the messiest, most painful way possible)!

Clean up the world !! Kill a politician today !!

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Morpheus Dreamlord wrote:
> 
> Umm, yes, sorry, I was typing quickly Tit_Hull is the name..lol.
> 
> What happens is Povray looks forward about 20 characters, then starts
> parsing from that point, with obvious error messages (this happens on
> other peoples scene files too, stuff that worked with 3.1a (I skipped b,
> c, versions)

That is a different story altogether. I went from pov v3.1r1 which was
the very first public release version to Pov 3.1d. I too use a lot of
while loops in my scenes and have as yet had no problems like you describe.
Not to say it won't happen but not yet anyway. I do recall once or twice
something like this happening but that was back when I only had 32 megs
of ram and swapped to the hard drive a lot. I just blamed it on the swapping
process and it has not occured since I have upgraded to 128 megs.

Maybe you have an odd memory leak but if it is restricting your rendering
activity that much you might as well post an official report before
they issue Pov v3.1e due out in a short time. It will give them something
to think about before the next release and it will also keep it from
happening again to someone else if it is a pov related bug.


I think Twyst might still have v3.1a on his site and it's worth
taking a look if it will fix your problem.

http://twysted.net

Some of the official mirrors might also have an older version of the
program in their archives. 

Try this site to see if they have a copy. It will be in directory named
mirrors/pub/povray or something like that

ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/

-- 
Ken Tyler

mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net

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Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:

>Some of the official mirrors might also have an older version of the
>program in their archives. 

3.1a is still available at ftp.povray.org.

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Do you know of this bug?, the #end causing the parser to skip about 20
characters in the .pov file, then error on what is now a bad command?

povray.org admin team wrote:
> 
> Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:
> 
> >Some of the official mirrors might also have an older version of the
> >program in their archives.
> 
> 3.1a is still available at ftp.povray.org.

-- 

Politicians are lying, cheating, thieving, underhanded, corrupt,
unethical, unprincipled, degraded, venal, money-grabbing,
self-serving filth that should be killed on sight
(in the messiest, most painful way possible)!

Clean up the world !! Kill a politician today !!

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They are not nested loops (well, only two levels, then #ended)

It happens after say 5 consecutive while-end loops.

Ken wrote:
> 
> Morpheus Dreamlord wrote:
> >
> > Umm, yes, sorry, I was typing quickly Tit_Hull is the name..lol.
> >
> > What happens is Povray looks forward about 20 characters, then starts
> > parsing from that point, with obvious error messages (this happens on
> > other peoples scene files too, stuff that worked with 3.1a (I skipped b,
> > c, versions)
> 
> That is a different story altogether. I went from pov v3.1r1 which was
> the very first public release version to Pov 3.1d. I too use a lot of
> while loops in my scenes and have as yet had no problems like you describe.
> Not to say it won't happen but not yet anyway. I do recall once or twice
> something like this happening but that was back when I only had 32 megs
> of ram and swapped to the hard drive a lot. I just blamed it on the swapping
> process and it has not occured since I have upgraded to 128 megs.
> 
> Maybe you have an odd memory leak but if it is restricting your rendering
> activity that much you might as well post an official report before
> they issue Pov v3.1e due out in a short time. It will give them something
> to think about before the next release and it will also keep it from
> happening again to someone else if it is a pov related bug.
> 
> I think Twyst might still have v3.1a on his site and it's worth
> taking a look if it will fix your problem.
> 
> http://twysted.net
> 
> Some of the official mirrors might also have an older version of the
> program in their archives.
> 
> Try this site to see if they have a copy. It will be in directory named
> mirrors/pub/povray or something like that
> 
> ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
> 
> --
> Ken Tyler
> 
> mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net

-- 

Politicians are lying, cheating, thieving, underhanded, corrupt,
unethical, unprincipled, degraded, venal, money-grabbing,
self-serving filth that should be killed on sight
(in the messiest, most painful way possible)!

Clean up the world !! Kill a politician today !!

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Morpheus Dreamlord <mor### [at] excitecom> wrote:

>Do you know of this bug?, the #end causing the parser to skip about 20
>characters in the .pov file, then error on what is now a bad command?

no, I don't. that's Chris Young's territory. I suggest you let him know.

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