Re: Intriguing XPL coding

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from Harry Binswanger  on
Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:38:46 -0500


>> Forcing NB to "do the math" resulted in the VAs being
>> evaluated as numbers,

Right. It's only necessary where numeric VA's do math within an
expression -- it's a device to force numeric (instead of string,
which crashes) evaluation by initializing with a "real" number,
namely zero. Like this:
 «IF0+«VA|50»+«VA|52»<«PV51»+1»
I told Siebert about it; he blew it off -- I didn't think he
knew what I was talking about; but because the workaround/fix is
so simple, who cares. They don't do any sophisticated XPL over
at NB. When you look at their own public XPL routines... e.g.
their AUX files... sad-ass pathetic crap. Still, in a way I do
understand: they've enhanced the engine's capabilities by
retreating almost entirely from XPL into binary solutions
(changing the engine and DLLs internally -- sadly, things users
can't tweak); and we've come to similar solutions by different
means (because we CAN'T change the engine), namely shelling to
external programs: our own EXEs and BATch scripts, as well as
canned apps like Ghostscript or BASE64. Either of these
solutions permits the engine to do just about anything within
reason. Such as, for example, edit 2 Gigabyte (or even, in an
earlier version, 63 Terabyte) files in XyWrite IV... But I
digress.

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Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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