printing string array

[Theo]

Hello, i'm Theo and i am using GC Basic now for a few months.
It's a great program and i would like to say thanks to all the people involved in developing and testing.

But now I have a small problem. Printing stringarray's goes wrong, the output is not as expected; the output is a number.
See listing:

;-------------------------------------------------

chip mega8,8

'Use LCD in 4 pin mode and define LCD pins

define LCD_IO 4

define LCD_DB4 PORTD.0 ; 11

define LCD_DB5 PORTD.1 ; 12

define LCD_DB6 PORTD.2 ; 13

define LCD_DB7 PORTD.3 ; 14

define LCD_RS PORTD.4 ; 4

define LCD_Enable PORTD.5 ; 6

define LCD_NO_RW

lcdcmd 1
wait 1 s

dim test as string

test(1) = "ab"
test(2) = "ab"

if test(1) = test(2) then
locate 0,0
print "Equal."
end if
locate 1,0
print test(1)
print " "
print test(2)

;--------------------------------------------

GCBasic version (0.9 11/5/2014)
lcd.h 08-17-2014, but also with older versions.

Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong?

Kind regards.

[Anobium]

Welcome.

A nice posting as you told us your versions. A great help. :-)

Let me try to help.

String definition is correct - 'dim test as string'. This creates a string. A string is typically 16 bytes long. To make shorter or longer use 'dim test as string * 2' or 'dim test as string * 32' are examples not the * n where n is the length of the string.

You assignment of values to a string needs to be changed. You are not using the string correctly. A string is essentially a type of array and you are addressing the elements of the string array but not using a valid method.

To assign a string, use
test = "AB"
To assign a specific character to a specific position in the string, use the ASCII value (two examples below, write to a specific position in the string the values shown).
test(1) = 65
test(2) = 98

So, if you want to test two strings you need to use two string definitions.

' I had a GLCD attached.... please change to a LCD.  :-)
dim test1 as string
dim test2 as string

test1 = "string1"
test2 = "string2"

if test1 = test2 then
 GLCDDrawString(0,0,"Equal.")
else
 GLCDDrawString(0,0,"!Equal.")
end if

Hope this helps.

[Theo]

Thank you for your support Anobium.

I was trying to create some shorter code by changing your program: DS1307 with LCD demonstration.

sub printDate
select case DOW
etc

into something like this:

weekday(1) = "Su"
weekday(2) = "Mo"
etc

sub printDate
print weekDay(DOW)
print ". "

It's clear to me now that string handling in GCbasic differs from other programming languages.

---

So I started with a new approach

Dim weekday as string * 15
weekday = "SuMoTuWeThFrSa"

Sub printDate
print mid(weekday,DOW,2)
print ". "

But using mid(or left/right) wasn't a success because the compiler started looping.
Maybe you can help me again.

Kind regards.

[Anobium]

May I ask that you post your complete code? I need to see the complete code.

Thank you.

[Theo]

The program I am using is your program: DS1307 with LCD Demonstration.gcb
These 2 lines, added by

;----- Variables

dim weekday as string * 15
weekday = "SuMoTuWeThFrSa"

and these 2 lines and changes by

sub printDate

print mid(weekday,DOW,2)
print ". "

;select case DOW                   ;day of the week
;  case 1:
;    print "Sun. "
;  case 2:
;    print "Mon. "
;  case 3:
;    print "Tue. "
;  case 4:
;    print "Wed. "
;  case 5:
;    print "Thu. "
;  case 6:
;    print "Fri. "
;  case 7:
;    print "Sat. "
;end select

Started compiling; after 3 minutes this message.

20:55:34 G@Stool-COMPILE/ASSEMBLE, processing D:\GCB@Syn\G@Stools\makeHEX.bat
Source-File = D:\GCB@Syn_Demos\DS1307\DS1307 with LCD Demonstration.gcb

Aborting due to runtime error 12 ("segmentation violation" signal) in gcbasic.bas::MESSAGE()

176.0 Sec. <<< WARNINGs / ERRORs while compiling!

[Anobium]

As Hugh would say 'that's not right'. We need to sort the root cause of the issue as the most simplest of program has the same error.

A workaround add this code to your program in the meanwhile.

#define mid midd
Function Midd(SysInString(), SysCharStart, Optional SysCharCount = 255) As String
  'Empty input?
  If SysInString(0) = 0 Then
    Midd(0) = 0
    Exit Function
  End If

  'Starting position too low?
  If SysCharStart < 1 Then SysCharStart = 1

  'Starting position too high?
  If SysCharStart > SysInString(0) Then
    Midd(0) = 0
    Exit Function
  End If

  'Input length too high?
  SysCharStart -= 1
  SysStringTemp = SysInString(0) - SysCharStart 'Max number of characters
  If SysCharCount > SysStringTemp Then
    SysCharCount = SysStringTemp
  End If

  'Copy characters
  For SysStringTemp = 1 To SysCharCount
    Midd(SysStringTemp) = SysInString(SysCharStart + SysStringTemp)
  Next
  Midd(0) = SysCharCount
End Function

[Theo]

Thanks for your fast response, compiling worked.

[Anobium]

This will be fixed in the next release, so, please replace this workaround when you see the next release.