For instance, if I have a function like FMT() that may or may not call various UDF's, is there a way to test to make sure the particular UDF being called is present before trying to call it (and crashing the script)? This would allow for more graceful error handling.

Thanks,

New Mexico Mark

I had the same thoughts as you a while back, and also wondered if this would be a usefull feature (ie, for Ruud to include into a future release) ... my gut feeling is that NO, there is no way to do this (aside from actually reading and parsing the script yourself - which is obviously out of the question).

I had two ideas I thought might work ... since function return values are assigned using the function name itself, eg.

Function Add($n1,$n2)
 $Add=$n1+$n2 ; <--- here
EndFunction

and since KiXtart does a pre-scan pass to cache UDF pointers, was thinking that the $Add variable itself would be defined as not "Empty" before-hand and that we could check for that before calling the function (ie, by using the vartype function) ... that doesn't work

Than I thought that maybe by cleverly using the execute function - we could test try a call to a function without actually causing a hard syntax error (script abort) and use the result of that somekind of conditional statement, like this (warning - this is non-working psuedo-code) :

If Execute("$=Add(1,2)") ; <--- If a softcall to this function works
 $Result = Add(1,2)      ; <--- do a hardcall to it
Else
 ?"Add function is not available"
EndIf

Hope maybe I've given you or someone else some food thought on this ... let's keep trying.

-Shawn

[ 10 January 2002: Message edited by: Shawn ]

code:

---

$UDFfile = "test.kix"
$isUDF   = "things"
shell '%comspec% /c type $UDFfile | find /i "function $isUDF" > nul'
if @error = 0
   "Function $isUDF was found"
else
   "Function $isUDF was NOT found"
endif

---

Bryce

[ 10 January 2002: Message edited by: Bryce ]

Actually the internal KiXtart function approach might be best. As you said, KS does a prepass scan for UDF's. If these are identified by name, they must be accessible to other parts of the program.

I guess this is a Ruud question, but why not an ExistUDF() function?

New Mexico Mark