World: r3wp

parse string [integer!]

integer? load string

normand, also remember that rebol can do date checking, so you don't 
have to check that manually as well

Although, only of dates that are in one of the ISO formats.

yes, you need to shape them to that first, but that might be easier 
than the other thing :-)

Example:
Let's say, our date is 6 digits YYMMDD.
>> date: "230812"
We deside, it's the year 2023:
>> insert date "20"
Now dashes are inserted to form a date understandable by REBOL:
>> insert skip date 6 "-"
>> insert skip date 4 "-"
Date now looks like this:
>> date
== "2023-08-12"
And we can control, it's a valid date with:
>> to-date date
== 12-Aug-2023

If it's not a valid date, like if the original had other characters 
than digits, we'll get an error. Errors can be caught with:
>> error? try [to-date "foobar"]
== true

Hope it helps.

control = check

Oh! I was persuming - wrongly -  that no check was done.  I thought 
that because at first glance Rebol did not produce an error on the 
function   >> a: to-date "afrt-01-02"  which results in == "afrt-01-02". 
 Thanks for the explanation; then checking all the digits in a date 
is not usefull.

if you load a string with a date, it will be checked:

>> load "25-mar-2006"             
== 25-Mar-2006
>> load "25-12-2006" 
== 25-Dec-2006
>> load "3-3-6" 
== 3-Mar-2006
>> error? try [load "32-13-2006"] 
== true
>> error? try [load "01-16-2006"]
== true

load is pretty good for checking valid content

Multiple refinement functions :  I need to formulate a function with 
more than one refinement.  I know in Rebol we usually use the word 
'either to formulate them, but with more than 3 refinements (and 
its following default case) it becomes tedious.   Structures like 
'record-operations: func [/delit /addit /modit] [ either  delit [print 
"delete"] [either addit [print "add"] [either modit [print "modify"][print 
"no refinement"]]]]'  are overly complicated.  I would like a more 
flat structure, to be able to distinguish the conditions which are 
independants from the ones mutually dependants, albeit mutually exclusive. 
 I tried multiple if's but that does not seem to work.  What are 
the good options to code multiple refinements functions.  The mail 
list does not seem to have an example discussing just that.  And 
in the source, most functions with multiple refinements are native.

Multiple ifs should work....
   if addit [addit code termined with a return]
  if modit [ modit code terminated with a return]


If you have multiple refinements that make up one logical unit, try 
something like this:


f: func [/a /b /c /d] [if all [a b c] [print 'abc return true] print 
'not-triggered]
f/a
not-triggered
f/b/c/a
abc
true

If you allow more than one refinement at a time, an approach is to 
build up the code in a block, depending on the refinements (using 
if), and then evaluate the block at the end of the function. Example:


f: func [/a /b /c] [blk: copy [] if a [append blk [print "ref a active"]] 
if b [append blk [print "ref b active"]] if c [append blk [print 
"ref c active"]] do blk]

>> f/c/a
ref a active
ref c active

How about this ?
f: func [/aref /bref /cref /local refs symbs][
	refs: copy [aref bref cref]
	symbs: copy []

 forall refs [if get refs/1 [append symbs to-char #"a" - 1 + index? 
 refs]] ; convert to #"a" #"b" #"c" ...
	switch rejoin symbs [
		"abc" [print "All of them"]
		"ac" [print "Just A and C"]
		"b" [print "Just B"]
	]
]

Thanks for those answers.

Using an issue (or could be a string) instead of a block:

f: func [/aref /bref /cref /local refs symbs][
	refs: copy [aref bref cref]
	symbs: copy #

 forall refs [if get refs/1 [append symbs to-char #"a" - 1 + index? 
 refs]] ; convert to #"a" #"b" #"c" ...
	switch symbs [
		#abc [print "All of them"]
		#ac [print "Just A and C"]
		#b [print "Just B"]
	]
]

Newer version also have case ...

case [
 aref [ print 'aref]
 bref [print 'bref]
 true [print 'default]
]

normand,  a lot of us forget about the two following words:  ANY 
  ALL

they are extremely powerfull when used together in cascade, and allow 
you to bake many ifs and eithers into one line of code:

ANY   stops evaluating an expression while it encounters none! values,
ALL   stops evaluating at the first none! value it encounters.

here is an example for handling multiple non-exlusive switches:


lets say you have refinements /a /b /c /d.      /d is mutually-exlusive 
to all others and a + b reacts differently than when alone... trying 
to wrap that in if/either can be a nightmare, and its impossible 
using case or switch... BUT using any/all actually makes it quite 
visual and simple to see flow:

option:	ANY [
	ALL [d (print "Exclusive d submitted") 1]
	ALL [a b (print "A and B supplied together") 2]
	ALL [a (print "A alone") 3]
	ALL [b (print "B alone") 4]
	0
]

if d [print "D also specified" option: option + 10]

here, the first occurence of any possible refinement combination 
returns a number, the trailing 0 is there so that ANY does not return 
none (which could also be what you want)

the /d is checked a part since its not exclusive.

Glad to see that in Rebol there are many ways to Rome.

Alphabetical sort - Is there a built-in way to obtain the right sort 
order for the french language.

a b c d e é è ë f g ... I dont see it as a 'sort refinement, and 
'am a bit surprised.  Else why fuss with 8 bit chars?  So I suppose 
it is there, but don't see it.

In plain sort, the accented caracters are coming last! a: [é è ê 
ë a c b d e g f h i k j l m n p o q r t s u v x w y z]   sort a
== [a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z è é ê ë]

Sort sorts only by ascii, the other things you need to compare yourself.

Else why fuss with 8 bit chars
 - erm, to display such chars, for example in altme?

Sorting.....Check this thread. It contains worked solutions for correct 
sorting in Hungarian. French should be similar:

http://www.rebol.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rebol/ml-display-thread.r?m=rmlMWWJ

Surely French rebolers have dealt with sorting... Have you checked 
rebolfrance  ?

Ill do. Thanks.

HNewbie here and considering purchasing View/Pro. Not rich so I was 
wondering, will I have to pay again when Rebol3 comes out?

licensing for R3 hasn't been discussed at all so far. you should 
probably ask your question to cindy at rebol dot com.

isn't it preliminary to talk about licensing of R3, when even alpha 
was not posted? :-)

(so we don't know much about architecture, I mean - e.g. language 
extensibility via plug-ins ..)

I'll ask Cindy: only thing I wish to know is if DLL access is not 
free in R3 if there will be a (cheap) upgrade path for R2 licensees.

BenK, I waited a real long time to purchase Pro/sdk but glad I did 
as I had a project come up that required binding my app into a simple 
to use .exe.

Well, I have no such requirements, no commercialisation of anything 
I write (it's just for my own and my family's use) so there's no 
way I can justify coughing up much money; just looking for the bare 
minimum I can get away with

good question on the licensing. I'm also about to buy the SDK and 
it would be nice to know how much it's going to be worth until a 
3.0 SDK comes out.

If Cindy answers, I'll pass it on here...

For thos einterested: just received e-mail from Cindy stating that 
there will be a (cheaper) upgrade path to R3 for R2 licensees, butno 
details available just yet.

.

G'day,

hi :-)

I'm new to REBOL (discovered it by accident searching for internet 
operating systems) and was pleasantly surprised to discover this 
powerful language/environment with an active/passionate community. 
I'm not a programming guru, but would like to understand the language/environment 
and the types of applications it is good for (and not good for). 
So would anybody be able to point me to the "idiot's guide to REBOL"? 
Does REBOL provide architecture documentation/guidelines and/or frameworks 
for the development of scalable, fault tolerant, manageable, with 
hot code swapping for soft real-time 24x7 applications? Thank you 
in advance for your recommendations.

heh, huh, tought questions :-)

Well, you joined our community in the correct time, for us we are 
close, actually very close to change REBOL millenium. 1.June there 
will be REBOL 3 released to selected developers. REBOL 3 is BIG change 
in architecture, for the good of course!

We will get things like threading, most of the stuff is going to 
be open-sourced, we will be able to extend rebol by own components, 
modules will be available too, and many other changes.

For things that do exist:

Resources:

- http://www.rebol.com- corporate site, you will find docs linked 
there

- http://www.rebol.net- developer's central. Sadly site was much 
more rich, but there was a server crash some time ago. But - still 
valuable rources - test releases, Carl's blogs, RAMBO bug database 
etc.

ah, and I forgot - http://www.rebol.org- script archive, mail list 
archive

Good, I guess I can go straight to REBOL 3! Will there be documentation, 
tutorials, architectues, etc. etc?

yes, of course, there should be. Part of the project is - DevBase, 
DocBase. DocBase is going to be based upon MediaWiki. I suggest you 
to install latest View release and then run Carl's DevCon slides. 
DevCon was held in Paris few weeks ago. Videos should be available 
shortly.

http://www.rebol.com/notes/devcon07-carl.zip