HP PPL compiler big, nasty, hairy, smelly, creapy BUG!

[Han]

(01-10-2014 11:42 PM)veeblefester Wrote:  Han, if this is not a bug then why the following unnecessary line

IF TYPE(var1)==2 THEN var1 := STRING(var1); END;

This line is saying if var1 is ALREADY a string (type 2) go ahead and convert it
to a string ANYWAY so the following EXPR line will work!

If this is necessary, this IS a bug that needs a work around.

Somebody tell me this is wrong.

Note: BOTH varptr and var1 were being input as strings.

Even if varptr and var1 were input as strings you would not get a valid input from INPUT() if you did not also initialize varptr and var1 to strings prior to executing INPUT(). If you CAREFULLY look over each instance of your code posts, you will see where the errors on your part are. If not, I can always quote your code and highlight it in bold for you.

It is NOT a bug because you need to account for the fact that you are "adding" strings. The command EXPR() takes a string, and converts it into a command as if typed from the command line without the container double quotes. So, if you would normally type:

SYMBOL1:="this is a test"

then the string that needs to be fed to EXPR() must look like:

"SYMBOL1:="this is a test""

Do you notice the "extra" set of double quotes that appears around the right hand side of the word 'test' ? If you simply do:

"SYMBOL1" + ":=" + "this is a test"

then all you get is

"SYMBOL1:=this is a test"

which when executed from the command line, would look like:

SYMBOL1:=this is a test

and undoubtedly result in an error. The point of the STRING() command applied to an object that is already a string is to insert an "extra" set of double quotes, since the overloaded operator + will strip the outer set of double quotes in such a manner that the final result will only have the far outermost double quotes.

I don't think I can explain it any more basic than that.