Enumeration Sequencing

[James Zukowski]

There are times I'd like to have an ENUMeration-type directive available. I know the LET gets things done, but not having to repeat variable names would help.

E.g., instead of:

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Opt.1=1,Opt.2=Opt.1+1,Opt.3=Opt.2+1,Opt.4=Opt.3+1

we would have something like:

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ENUM Opt.1,Opt.2,Opt.3,Opt.4

Possibility?

[Thomas Bock]

By the way, LET a,b,c=0 would be nice as well.

[James Zukowski]

And there's also binary bit-flag generation to consider:

Flag.1=1,Flag.2=2*Flag.1,Flag.3=2*Flag.2,Flag.4=2*Flag.3

Not quite sure how to "translate" that.

Perhaps an extension of the SET--- directives might work. E.g.,

SETFLAGS Flag.1,Flag.2,Flag.3,Flag.4,...

and for enumerations:

SETENUM Opt.1,Opt.2,Opt.3,Opt.4,...

[Mike King]

James, have you considered creating a simple object to do this as in...

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  def class "enum"
  function Integer(*)do_enum
  function Binary(*)do_enumbin
  end def
!
do_enumbin:
  bin=1
do_enum:
  x$=stk(properties)
!
  if x$="" \
   then return
!
  if pos("N"^x$)<>0 \
   then def msg(201)="Non-numeric variable passed to function";
        exit 201
!
  n=1
  for i=1 to len(x$)
  vars$+=",v"+str(i)
  vals$+=str(n)+sep
  if bin \
   then n=n*2 \
   else n++
  next
!
  vars$=cpl("iolist "+vars$(2))
  enter iol=vars$
  read data from vals$ to iol=vars$
  return


It could then be used like this:

-:list
0010 BEGIN
0020 LET oEnum=NEW("enum" FOR PROGRAM)
0030 oEnum'Integer(a,b,c,d,e)
0040 oEnum'Binary(x,y,z)
0050 DUMP
-:run
! ERR=0, CTL=0, RET=2
! **********************************************************
! Level=1
! PGN="<Unsaved>"
!  Statement......0050
a=1
b=2
c=3
d=4
e=5
oEnum=100001
x=1
y=2
z=4

You could also add a 'Clear function to set all the values to 0 if desired in response to Thomas Bock's request

[James Zukowski]

That's an interesting approach, though I would probably make it a global object that's established on login without any dependencies. That way, we don't have to instantiate it when we want to use it; that's already done.

Also, to Thomas Bock's request, I might suggest an 'Assign (and possibly 'Assign$) method to use the first argument as the value to assign to the remaining list. I'm sure we can figure that part out from here.

Thanks for the different perspective!

[Peter.Higgins]

James,

"By the way, LET a,b,c=0 would be nice as well."

read data from $$ to a,b,c,iol=nomadsVars$,tmp$
read data from "" to a,b,c ,iol=nomadsVars$,tmp$ 

Suppressing the "highly practical" LET is an option too. 
Personally I find them distracting, and suspect they are a prime reason for BASIC disdain.

[Mike King]

To suppress the "LET" directive simply set the 'NL' system parameter.