AltME groups: search

Arrays are indexed from zero. Arrays can also be used to index other 
arrays. Example:

>dim name$(4)
>dim a(1,1)
>name$(3)="Joe"
>a(1,0)=3
>print name$(a(1,0))
Joe

Example use of local variables. In line 70, 'a' is local, because 
it's a parameter to the procedure, 'b' is still global. After line 
80, 'b' also become local to the procedure. After returning from 
the procedure, both 'a' and 'b' are set back to their global values. 
In 'proctest', 'a' could have been called anything without changing 
the global 'a'.

>> do http://www.fys.ku.dk/~niclasen/rebol/bbcbasic.html
Script: "BBC BASIC" (27-Jul-2007)
BASIC v. 0.4.0 

>auto
   10 a=42
   20 b=1
   30 proctest(a)
   40 print "line 40 : a=";a " b=";b
   50 end
   60 def proctest(a)
   70 print "line 70 : a=";a " b=";b
   80 local b
   90 a=2:b=2
  100 print "line 100: a=";a " b=";b
  110 endproc
  120 0
>50end
>run
line 70 : a=        42 b=         1
line 100: a=         2 b=         2
line 40 : a=        42 b=         1

So far, I've allowed keywords to be either UPPER- or lower-case. 
I think, I have to restrict them to UPPER-case like in traditional 
BASIC. Problem is with variable names being assigned by the LET statement. 
If I define a variable "length":
LET length=10

and then use it in some expression, the first part of the variable 
name is being recognized as the LEN function. In the original BBC 
BASIC, the above LET statement is ok, while you can't write:
LET LENGTH=10

, which will give a syntax error. I conclude, I have to restrict 
keywords to UPPER-case and then check, when the variables are being 
defined, so their names don't collide with keywords.

It's rather difficult to implement functions (user functions, which 
the BBC BASIC language support), with the implementing method, I've 
choosed. Problem is, that the return point need to be saved, while 
the function code is running. The problem is the same with statements 
like GOSUB and PROC (procedures), but so far, I've just put some 
restrictions on those. In this basic, more than one statement can 
be on each line, if they're separated by colons, ':'. The way it's 
implemented, this example give a syntax error:
GOSUB 100:PRINT "I'm back"

My implementation require, that the return point is the next line. 
That isn't good enough with functions, because they're used in the 
middle of other statements. Examples:

PRINT FNone_function, FNanother_function
IF FNmyfunc=42 THEN PRINT "It's 42!"


The return point for those need to be in the middle of a statement, 
in the middle of a line. So I'm at a point, where I consider another 
implementation of all the statements (more like a real emulation 
of the BBC computer) or if I just should say "the heck with it" and 
move on to some other language or another version of a new BASIC 
language.

Comments, hmmm.  You've done an awesome job John.  I learned Z-80 
assembler back on my TRS-80 before I did much BASIC.  When they finally 
got a computer class in my high school for ninth graders, I was already 
in grade 12 and laughed at the BASIC.  So, instead of having me whining 
and whinging all class, I got to write a student database program 
in assembler for my electronics teacher on the Commodore PET.  Never 
been a fan of BASIC, but what you've done can only attract a larger 
REBOL audience so well done.  If you can make it compatible enough 
to run old DOS frogger.bas you may have a demo that gains worldwide 
attention.


Technically, back to your point, (having sadly only glossed over 
your codebase), what if you tricked the "line" internals say with 
pair! or decimal! keeping your own sub-lines invisible to the user?


And if you start up a Forth dialect...I'm in.   Or at least will 
show a keener interest watching a guru at work   :)

Thanks for the input! I thought about something similar, having a 
sub-pointer as you speak of. It could work. But I got the feeling, 
it'll be a better design, if it's done like the original, using an 
internal format with byte-code for the keywords. I have to judge, 
how much work it is.


I'm interested in Greggs original ideas, which got me going with 
this, to implement different languages. I'll consider Forth as the 
next one.

Forth has a very (untouchable actually) immersive feel to it.  As 
long as you avoid working with the sad sad current trend of text 
file forth, everything you do in Forth is Forth.  Editor commands...Forth, 
disk management Forth, debugger Forth, locate and cross reference, 
Forth.  Anyway I'm still questing for a REBOL enviroment that allows 
that immersive feel.  No brain switching to Editor, back to console 
command brain, then another brain switch to file manager, bobloblaw. 
 Mondo powerful when you can keep your brain in one mode for a full 
eight hours.  Even building Forth was Forth.  I do kinda miss it, 
but only for semimental reasons.  REBOL is just too cool to think 
about going back.

What is a good Forth version as a reference system? ANS Forth? I 
also need a place to look, where the language is explained in a clear 
and short form.

I have a lot more links here as well, but the best reference may 
be Brian, since he was a real live Forth user. I also have a couple 
books on my shelf, but...

You beat me to it Gregg.  Starting Forth by Leo Brodie.  It includes 
the old school (and really the only reason to use Forth) block editor. 
 Without the block editor Forth is pretty much just another language, 
with it (and after getting used to EDLIN style editing), you get 
the immersive holy grail.  Thinking Forth is quite a bit more cerebral, 
but I know it's been made available in PDF, but I found this...

http://home.iae.nl/users/mhx/sf.htmlso far.

Never mind the link so much.  just a dup of one of Greggs.

I never got into Forth more than playing around, but I *love* the 
idea of the immersive experience. REBOL is that in many ways for 
me, because I can think about so many things using REBOL as a context. 
I think the idea of dialects could lead us to domain specific environments 
that are like Forth, in that they are highly focused and immersive.

Forth Inc will send you a copy of of Swiift   http://www.forth.com
 it has a block editor, but they've moved away from supporting it 
so they could 'do Windows'...a pity.  And wait...did I say Forth 
was "just another language"?  Where did THAT come from?   Long live 
REBOL.  :)

Ok, I'll read some more of this. I've already started a dialect (more 
like an intepreter as with BASIC). I'll have a real REBOL dialect 
(that can be used in the middle of REBOL scripts) in mind as well, 
as I go along.

[InfoQ Article]

Language-oriented programming : an evolutionary step beyond object-oriented 
programming?
http://www.infoq.com/news/2007/09/Language-oriented-programming


Fowler defined this concept as “the general style of development 
which operates about the idea of building software around a set of 
domain specific languages”.

According to Martin Fowler object-oriented 
domain modelling allows to “build up a vocabulary” but the grammar 
– ways to combine these vocabularies – is not defined; DSLs add this 
grammar side. Therefore language-oriented programming inducts “this 
shift of moving from thinking about vocabulary, which is objects, 
to the notion of a language that combines vocabulary and grammar.”

I wonder of any of those well versed in languages (Greg, btiffin, 
Geomol, Max to name a few) would want to respond to this posted question 
related to the above article  "What language you would use to develop 
DSL?" ?

If I had to quickly pick an order;  REBOL, Forth, SNOBOL, Lisp.  
If I was told I HAD to do it in a class based object oriented language 
I'd probably pick SmallTalk ... no ... I'd probably just leave.  
To be honest, I've rarley seen a DSL that didn't require a programmer 
to script it anyway, so... I find the whole thing kind of moot.  
Moot is the wrong word.  A non-coder MIGHT be able to VID up a GUI 
but I doubt it would do much...or by the time they were done, the 
non-coder would have unknowningly become a coder.  I've not seen 
a DSL I'd turn over to Bob the manager to write progams in.  Even 
languages written to be specific; Erlang for telephony, Forth for 
telescopes, are still programmer languages. REBOL comes soooo close 
to being a data language that humans can use...but unfortunately 
nope;  Programmers required.  The magic all happens when you can 
build up layers, and stand on the shoulders of giants.  Something 
hardware engineers have been doing since day 1...programmers might 
learn by day 32'767 if we get lucky.  No doubt our smartest programmers 
will be fussing with strings 50 years from now with the same basic 
problems and mind sets faced 50 years ago.

A. It doesn't matter what language you use.  That's like two kids 
that speak English saying.. "lets invent a new language..  what language 
should we use to invent it with?"

I'm going to try to make time to respond on the ML later today. It's 
a good topic.

It matters if it's a dialect Terry. If you wanted to create a special 
language to discuss neclear physics, do you think it would make a 
difference if you based it on a Mathematical foundation versus Basque?

Read this today, re programming language choice; http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html
  Down near the bottom is the Appendix: Power. and leads to http://www.paulgraham.com/accgen.html
 I can read the languages he uses as examples, but only a few of 
them come close to the readability of   foo: func [n] [func [i] [n: 
n + i]]  or am I just too sucked into REBOL/Think?  It's too bad 
the page has extra space around the brackets, as at a quick glance 
REBOL would be in the top four shortest. It's as quick grokable (meaning 
a quick glance implies a function returning a function that accumulates) 
 as Dylan, LUA, Javascript and NewtonScript.  And who uses Javascript? 
 :)

But Gregg, the reference was towards a "language that combines vocabulary 
and grammar"...  sounds more like "Energy equals mass times the speed 
of light squared", rather than E = MC2

I understand; my point was that mathematics, as a foundation, allows 
you to express things in a domain that Basque, historically, does 
not. A DSL doesn't *have* to be an extension or outgrowth of an existing 
language, but that can often help. In order for tha that to work, 
you need to choose a base language that suits your needs.

Has anyone written a dialect to capture live sports action?  Here 
are some examples of the types of items needed to be captured...

Volleyball... http://www.wnmu.edu/athletic/stats/07vb/29wnmu.htm#GAME.PLY

Hockey... http://www.nhl.com/scores/htmlreports/20072008/PL030416.HTM

Soccer... http://www.uefa.com/competitions/ucl/fixturesresults/round=15109/match=301604/report=mbm.html

What I am going to attempt is a dialect that will respond to single 
key-strokes to tell the story of a match and at the same time capture 
the statics for the live game.  Hopefully the end result  will lead 
to many different tools based on this data such as statistics visualizations 
in the form of data summaries/reports and charts.

Each skill would be given a character on the keyboard and would expect 
it to be followed by a player number and the level of success of 
the player attempting the skill.

well, first I'd build the skeleton for the dialect for parsing a 
single line. then I might add some actions to it and then expand 
it to handle multiple lines.

The first line of the volleyball page http://www.wnmu.edu/athletic/stats/07vb/29wnmu.htm#GAME.PLY
, the line starting 1-0,  _might_  be represented by the following 
keystrokes...
s43a23b50
So, 

s = set attempt, 4 = player Cola Svec, 3 = set attempt level 3 - 
perfect set

a = attack attempt, 2 = player Jeri Walkowiak, 3 = attack attempt 
level 3 - kill

b = block attempt, 5 = player Jessica Lindgren, 0 = block attempt 
level 0 - error

I might need to add a team designator like H = Home, V = visitor 
as it could be complicated to catch live play and may need to establish 
which team inorder to correctly identify a player.  I may also need 
to use a separator between each keystroke if I want to identify the 
player by jersey number.

It is a table with an empty table inside, and also a Table-Cell

parse rules that will give a true if parse/all {<table><table></table><tr></tr></table>} 
RULES

rfc: I have a (not so) little function that attempts to match a block 
of values to a given specification.  Example:

	>> probe match [%image.png :red 300x100 /old][
	[	file: file! | url!
	[	size: opt pair!
	[	attributes: any get-word! | refinement!
	[	]
	make object! [
		file: %image.png
		size: 300x100
		attributes: [:red /old]
	]


There's not much to the rules, they are -- one (default), opt (zero 
or one), any (zero or many), some (many).  If they don't match, they 
return an error.  Any suggestions?  Optimizations?

	http://www.ross-gill.com/r/match.r

What's the best approach to support normal Rebol things like FOREACH, 
IF, ANY, ALL and set-words, get-words within a dialect? I don't want 
to write Rebol parse rules for this.

Example: parse XYZ mydialect

XYZ: [
	repeat x 1 14 [
		a: get-point x 7
		set-point 7 x (a * 2)
	]
]
]

Is there a best practice how to get Rebol control structure support 
into dialects?

but isn't this just a regular rebol code block then .. a: get-point 
x 7 and set-point looks like a normal rebol func too?

Just assume that get-point and set-point is done via a dialect.

You can't make that restriction with DO/next or Gabriele's compile-rules 
without a sandbox - hard to do in R2.

Brian: I think, that Rbert wants to use parse rules. The question 
is, what is the best way how to setup such a rules.

compile-rules: Ok, will take a look at it.

The other option would be not to use a dialect at all and create 
normal functions for everything. But I like dialects :-)

History states a version 1.50...

Just because normal people want DO in PARSE doesn't make it a good 
idea. Little girls want a pony, but it's not a good idea if they 
live in an apartment. DO in PARSE would be a feature that couldn't 
be used most of the time because of its security problems.

A better analogy might be little boys asking for a machine gun though 
:(

We already had a long discussion about the "security problems" and 
I still strongly disagree that there's any more security problems 
than having DO in REBOL has.

I'm not saying that I don't support the addition of a DO operation, 
just that it has security implications. I already added DO to the 
Parse Proposals long ago. Here it is: http://www.rebol.net/wiki/Parse_Project#DO

can I ask how did Chris make in his dialect so that set-words are 
used >>a: [ id: ]<< .. how do I parse this, this for example doesn't 
work >>parse a [ 'id: ]<< , any Idea? :)

It doesn't seem to work >>parse a [ id: ]<<

yes, I saw this in Chris's  validation lib " Defining a good dialect 
(simple, short, efficient) isn't an easy task. Chris did some work 
about such form validation dialect in QM. See http://www.rebol.org/documentation.r?script=filtered-import.r
" (on this url)

you can always check for any set-word!, but I don't know how you 
would check for a specific set-word!.

I'm just starting to play with dialects : it's really a pleasure 
to play with.

aha this words yes

>> a: [ id: ]
== [id:]
>> parse a [ set ttt set-word! ( print ttt ) ]
id
== true

:) thanks a lot

a variant on that would be:

parse a [ttt: set-word! (print ttt/1)]

I am still at mostly basic dialecting rules, but even this is very 
interesting and a lot can be made

I'm still waiting who will be the first to write Rebol like interpreter 
as a dialect:)

has anyone made a dialect that would make some basic or typical sqlite 
? (so I won't be reinventing if not necesarry)

Last year I created a small database which I wanted to talk to via 
a dialect. So I created a builder dialect that would build the database 
command dialect in two sets, one for server side for query handling 
and one for client side for response handling, so 3 dialects.

Then I would build client- and server-apps using a make-file like 
dialect which preprocesses and builds apps and uploads them to specific 
locations. 4 dialects. Great amount of control. Very little code.

Janko; you may know this; dobeash.com has RebDB as well as a SQLite 
driver.   RebGUI with RebDB ...  livin'   :)

Though not included in the rebol.org submission (it's in QM), I actually 
have two data matching dialects that use the same validation vocabulary 
(in both cases, set-words are the anchor to each rule).


 import [this "1"] [this: integer! is 1] ; import extracts name/value 
 pairs

 match [1][this: integer! | decimal! is 1] ; match evaluates a free-form 
 dialect


Both have different basic expressions, yet use exactly the same validation 
code.

VID:   How I can change button color? I tried:
view layout [ a: button red [  a/color: 0.0.0
        show a]
    ]

but nothing happens....

Color in a button is a graduated effect.

Take  a look at:
    a/effect
and then try changing it something like:
    a/effect/3: 0.0.0

(It ought to be easier!)

yes, it ought to be easier. the color of the button is a hardwired 
effect that is calculated upon initialization of the button. when 
initialized, it can't be changed easily without knowing the source 
code for the button style.

Yes, yes. 

I'm trying to write a italian guide to Rebol, but now it's coming 
R3, and VID will be changed significantly., so I use Rebol just for 
the programs I need. 

I think that Rebol is what a programmer really needs, but finding 
guides about it is so difficult...

either color

  means, if you have submitted a color facet in VID level ... e.g. 
  button red

You just have to do a little math, if you want the gradient. From 
the oce you can see how to aproach it - VID applies +- 32 tuple offset 
...

I took a bit of a Rebol break for the new year.  But last night I 
had an idea that just wouldn't get out of my head.  It happened after 
I read about "code golf" on StackOverflow.  The premise is to use 
the fewest characters possible to solve a problem using a general 
purpose language (albeit perhaps one optimized for such a game, like 
"GolfScript")

Some of the things people do are utterly ridiculous.  They compile 
assembly to DOS .COM files and claim the resulting hex bytes constitute 
program code because you can feed them into the console.  Other approaches 
obfuscate the code beyond belief to where you really can't make the 
slightest change to them--they are effectively not source, but the 
result of a bizarro compilation--often written using some kind of 
assistive tool or calculator.

Philosophically, it would seem Rebol could compete, if the functions 
had shorter names--which is easy enough (Huffmanize natives and the 
mezzanine, whatever).  But the whitespace policy for words is a bit 
of a problem.  Then I thought of what I called "mushing"

>> unmush [aBcDe/fG/h]
== [a b c d e/f g/h]

>> unmush [AbCdE/Fg/H]
== [a: b c d e/f: g/h:]

Still parseable Rebol, but each time you switch the case it's a conceptual 
word break.

and how do you decipher a set-word ?

ok... I know that you can use com to get a text version of any file 
format which has a thumbnail viewer... which can be very usefull 
to read things like pdf, word, and other obscure file types....

I've done that in the past, the problem when using direct API calls 
is passing pointers and stuff, remember you need to create a main 
loop to pool events  and messages, it's a pain... i've some code 
that does this, but remember that this old style is gone on vista 
gfx.

Does anyone have an example of how to pop-up a little window in the 
Window's system tray? I've seen the system tray examples but I want 
to create a "reminder" like when Outlook does when gets a new email, 
etc.

Create an appointment - I don't know if it can. The answer is... 
probably. COMLib is just a wrapper for COM, so if COM can do it, 
then there's a good chance that COMLib can do it too. I'm not on 
Windows any more so it's less likely that I'll test it, but I can 
still do so.

Anton, can you see anything wrong with this ... crashes Rebol

rebol []


; download the skype4com dll from https://developer.skype.com/Docs/Skype4COM/Start
; and register the library
; regsvr32 skype4com.dll

; example of using sms
; https://developer.skype.com/Docs/Skype4COMLib/Sms_vbs

COMlib: do %comlib.r
COMlib/initialize

do bind [
	oSkype: CreateObject "Skype4COM.Skype" 

 oSMS: GetObject [ oSkype ".SendSms( %s, %s)" "+12345679" "Hello!" 
 ]

] COMlib/api

This should send a SMS using the Skype installed on your PC.

On Windows 2K, a SMS is sent, but it's just garbage

Using %S expects a unicode string

Try by putting a null character at the end of all strings passed 
to the COMlib ?

I posted a question on the Skype API forums ... not that I am expecting 
a reply :(

https://developer.skype.com/jira/browse/SPA-559


They have assigned someone to look at the problem.  Since comlib 
works with other applications, there must be something odd with the 
way Skype is different string parameters.  Or, there is a bug in 
the way Rebol strings are converted to BSTR strings.

I found two more SMS providers with a COM interface.  They both work 
with the comlib.

Ok, I have this observation.  I get crashes or errors with using 
the getInteger command when passing a string parameter to the skype4com 
dll.  I don't get an error if I don't pass a parameter.  I don't 
get errors when passing strings to Getobject.  I also don't get errors 
passing strings to getInteger to other dlls.  Just Skype.

hello, i m working on a programm that must interact with outlook 
and the number dialer of windows ... can someone tell me where do 
i have to look for documentation on it ? does anybody already did 
it ?

How can I set the current directory as the active one when I create 
an XLS object with COMLib? At the moment I need to provide fully-qualified-filenames 
to open a file.

If so, there was a problem that really bugged me, which I couldn't 
find a good way to avoid. That is, the current directory would be 
where the com2rebol.dll was (or something like that). So you can 
see the demos have to reference files relative to the parent directory.

Is it possible to write a windows "service" (a program running as 
a service) with rebol?

Hi, just getting my hands back on control Excel via ComLib. How do 
I get a value back?

I was changing a file in an other directory not the one the base 
script was in...

Trying to get a decimal! into an excel cell. I use:


sendValue excel-app ".ActiveSheet.Cells(%d,%d) = %f" reduce [row 
col val]


But this leads to strange content. What's the C-type of a Rebol decimal!

Comlib.r is missing a way to pass decimal! / floats. I extended it. 
Seems to work at least with XLS.

Robert, on a recent project my app creates an xml file formatted 
with xml that Excel understands. It's a hassle but you can make very 
pretty spreadsheets that do just about all the formatting (so it's 
a far cry from CSV). I start with creatinga very small excel spreadsheet 
then saving as an xml file. Then I check out how they do the formatting. 
You can create multiple tabbed spreadsheets very easily this way. 
Doesn't do graphs though.

Yes! Being an experimental physicist it always strikes me as funny 
that we don't have a branch called "experimental computer science". 
Computers may be predictable, but humans (you know, that design XML 
formats, or have a ship cut an Internet cable in the Pacific, or....) 
are not.

Well, I really like COMLib. It's pretty straight forward and the 
COM sutff is one of the better things MS did. It works and is a pretty 
simple concept.

I want to do:

VBA-Code: ActiveSheet.Copy After:=Workbooks(2).Sheets(3)
	

And I use:
								

objectMethod excel-app ".ActiveSheet.Copy After:=Workbooks(%d).Sheets(%d)" 
reduce [workbook worksheet]



But this doesn't work. XLS creates a new document with the copy worksheet 
inserted. Looks like the stuff after .Copy isn't recognized. Any 
idea?

Graham asked, when using COMLib-Anton, can you pass a decimal to 
Excel?

When my Skype client upgraded itself my Rebol Skype app which I use 
to switch audio in and out sources failed. Turns out the the new 
Skype4com.dll (1.0.36) needs to have those NULL's when using getobject. 
Thanks to Graham for mentioning the use of NULL awhile back. Oh, 
a great app I used to register and unregister the dll's while testing 
is RegDllView http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/registered_dll_view.html.

Actually I based it on your skype.r app. All it does is set the audioin 
and audioout settings. I have a Plantronics bluetooth handset and 
earpiece but it doesn't support Skype voicemail messages so every 
time I received one I had to go to the tools and switch out the audio 
to my computer speakers and back again. It also seems to cause some 
slight interference when I had to enter touchtones so I wrote this 
little gui that simply lets me change those. Nothing special but 
it is a real time saver and with the touchtones a call saver since 
you have to enter tones pretty qucikly sometimes.