Re: Release 5.2.7

[Ethan A M. <merritt@u.washington.edu>]

On Thursday, June 6, 2019 11:30:40 AM PDT Achim Gratz wrote:
> Ethan Merritt (UW) writes:
> > * CHANGE clear STATS_* variables before performing analysis
> 
> It took me a while to relaize, but that particular change killed on of
> my scripts.  That is using data that doesn't always exist, so I have to
> test for that like this:
> 
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> STATS_records=0
> stats [24*sr:24*sq] data using ($4==10?t($1):1/0):($2) nooutput
> TEST=STATS_records>0  
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
> 
> That gives you a warning from stats, but you could then skip additional
> code using the non-existing data (that would error out) based on the
> result in TEST.
> 
> That no longer works since you're now getting an error (terminating the
> script) at the last line.  Note that you can't do something like
> exist(STATS_record) either like one could reasonably expect to work.
> Any workarounds?
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Achim.

I may not understand the required test.  The following works for me:

datafile = "whatever"

 if (exists("STATS_records")) { print 'got it already' }
else { stats datafile }

I would probably use an explicit name rather than STATS:

if (exists("MYDAT_records")) { print 'already did MYDATA' }
else { stats datafile name "MYDAT" }
show var MYDAT

Is the problem that STATS_records might exist for reasons other
than having run a previous STATS command?   That was exactly
the sort of confusion that the change you mention was intended
to prevent.

	Ethan





	Ethan