Issues with IsDeclared ... is this a bug or am I doing it wrong LOL?

[obiwanceleri]

A little brain teaser for you.

I'm trying to write a simple debug function where I just shoot values and they're processed in a specific way to the console (Note: I'm trying to find out where a boolean variable turns into a text variable containing the text "True" instead of the value 'True').

BTW, "_CW" is shorthand for "ConsoleWrite" (how lazy can you be LOL)

So in order to make the output cleaner I tried different techniques to *not* display something when the function receives nothing.

Consider this bit of code : 

Global $bValuePos = True
Global $bValueNeg = False

_CW($bValuePos, $bValueNeg)

Exit

Func _CW($i1 = "", $i2 = "", $i3 = "", $i4 = "", $i5 = "", $i6 = "", $i7 = "", $i8 = "")
    If IsDeclared($i1) Then ConsoleWrite($i1 & @TAB & VarGetType($i1) & @CRLF)
    If IsDeclared($i2) Then ConsoleWrite($i2 & @TAB & VarGetType($i2) & @CRLF)
    If IsDeclared($i3) Then ConsoleWrite($i3 & @TAB & VarGetType($i3) & @CRLF)
    If IsDeclared($i4) Then ConsoleWrite($i4 & @TAB & VarGetType($i4) & @CRLF)
    If IsDeclared($i5) Then ConsoleWrite($i5 & @TAB & VarGetType($i5) & @CRLF)
    If IsDeclared($i6) Then ConsoleWrite($i6 & @TAB & VarGetType($i6) & @CRLF)
    If IsDeclared($i7) Then ConsoleWrite($i7 & @TAB & VarGetType($i7) & @CRLF)
    If IsDeclared($i8) Then ConsoleWrite($i8 & @TAB & VarGetType($i8) & @CRLF)
EndFunc

For those who didn't know, you can assign default values to all required variables. In our case, they're all going to be equal to "" unless a value is passed to the function. 

Logically, from within that function $i1 SHOULD be declared if a parameter is passed to it, right?

Well check it out; ConsoleWrite(IsDeclared($i1)) shoots me a zero from within that function.

Since it IS Local, we should be getting -1, right? A zero means it's NOT declared, which is obviously not true.

So is there something funky here or am I doing it wrong ehehehe

Also if you run that code, nothing comes out, no matter what you send in as parameters. It's time to change things up. 

Questioning, continued:

So I tried many ways of going about the same thing, hoping to "crack the code". 

Consider the following line: 

If $i1 <> "" Then ConsoleWrite($i1 & @TAB & VarGetType($i1) & @CRLF)
If $i2 <> "" Then ConsoleWrite($i2 & @TAB & VarGetType($i2) & @CRLF)

In theory, if you call the function and give nothing to display ... you expect to see nothing, right? And if you do, then you expect to see ConsoleWrite shoot out something?
Well, If you pass a boolean and it's False then you HAVE PASSED A VALUE ... but the line fails to display. It will work fine however if the value is True. There's something wrong, we're expecting that line to execute if the value is NOT EMPTY. 

Then I tried inversing the logic :

If Not $i1 = "" Then ConsoleWrite($i1 & @TAB & VarGetType($i1) & @CRLF)
If Not $i2 = "" Then ConsoleWrite($i2 & @TAB & VarGetType($i2) & @CRLF)

Same issue. As soon as the value is boolean false, the line fails to display.,. when I should get the value followed by the variable type. 

I'm expecting this output 

True     Bool
False     Bool

but I'm getting this: 

True     Bool

Something's wrong. 

 

A possible solution:

After much searching and mucking around, I found this technique to make sure booleans display fine when they're False:

Func _CW($i1 = Null, $i2 = Null, $i3 = Null, $i4 = Null, $i5 = Null, $i6 = Null, $i7 = Null, $i8 = Null)
    If Not ($i1 = Null) Then ConsoleWrite($i1 & @TAB & VarGetType($i1) & @CRLF)
    If Not ($i2 = Null) Then ConsoleWrite($i2 & @TAB & VarGetType($i2) & @CRLF)
    If Not ($i3 = Null) Then ConsoleWrite($i3 & @TAB & VarGetType($i3) & @CRLF)
    If Not ($i4 = Null) Then ConsoleWrite($i4 & @TAB & VarGetType($i4) & @CRLF)
    If Not ($i5 = Null) Then ConsoleWrite($i5 & @TAB & VarGetType($i5) & @CRLF)
    If Not ($i6 = Null) Then ConsoleWrite($i6 & @TAB & VarGetType($i6) & @CRLF)
    If Not ($i7 = Null) Then ConsoleWrite($i7 & @TAB & VarGetType($i7) & @CRLF)
    If Not ($i8 = Null) Then ConsoleWrite($i8 & @TAB & VarGetType($i8) & @CRLF)
EndFunc   ;==>_CW

Two things. 
1. Notice how I replaced "" by Null;
    Apparently "" confuses AutoIT when you're comparing it to boolean False. I'm guessing AutoIT assumes "" = False?

2. I've also put the whole comparison between parenthesis.
    My guess is "Not" is only processing the first part of the equation --> it does "Not $i1" and then checks to see if  that is equal to Null. We want to do "Not" on the results of $i1 = Null instead. This was a tricky one. 

But I still think there's a bug in the AutoIT code however

I'm glad this is cleared up but still think IsDeclared should tell me when a variable is local if it is part of the variables ... declared as the function's parameters. 

Hope you learned something and hope you find the code found here is useful!

Louis

P.S.: I'm using version 3.3.14.5 of AutoIt3

Edited February 11, 2022 by obiwanceleri
Added AutoIT version

[Danp2]

22 minutes ago, obiwanceleri said:

If IsDeclared($i1) Then ConsoleWrite($i1 & @TAB & VarGetType($i1) & @CRLF)

Looking at the help file, it appears that you need to do it like this --

If IsDeclared("i1") Then ConsoleWrite($i1 & @TAB & VarGetType($i1) & @CRLF)

 

[obiwanceleri]

3 minutes ago, Danp2 said:

Looking at the help file, it appears that you need to do it like this --

If IsDeclared("i1") Then ConsoleWrite($i1 & @TAB & VarGetType($i1) & @CRLF)

 

Oh that's interesting ... let me check ... 

[obiwanceleri]

@Danp2

Wow putting the variable name between parenthesis does work! (And that was in the example given in de documentation!!!). 
... but in our case variables that aren't passed are flagged as being declared anyways. Which kinda defeats the idea.

Per example, if you add this line to the script ...

If IsDeclared("i8") Then ConsoleWrite("BINGO i8" & @TAB & IsDeclared("i8") & @CRLF)

... and call _CW() without an eighth parameter, you will get this answer: 

BINGO i8    -1

Since no parameter was passed and there's no "Local $i8" statement, I was expecting IsDeclared() to give back a zero and the line to be blank. 

Oh well. 

The good news is I got exactly what I needed to detect booleans being transformed into strings, which was the initial issue that sent me into this foray. 

For the future, I Think I will simply create numerical variables equal to 0 or 1 instead. Booleans are great but in some borderline cases it makes the code go funky.

@Danp2 I'm giving you the win on this one

Thanks!

[jchd]

32 minutes ago, obiwanceleri said:

Booleans are great but in some borderline cases it makes the code go funky.

Do you have something to backup such a vague assertion?

[Danp2]

@obiwanceleriI think you are trying to use the wrong function to perform this task. Have you tried declaring the function like this?

Func _CW($i1 = Default, $i2 = Default, $i3 = Default, $i4 = Default, $i5 = Default, $i6 = Default, $i7 = Default, $i8 = Default)

Then you could check with something like

If $i1 <> Default Then ConsoleWrite($i1 & @TAB & VarGetType($i1) & @CRLF)

 

[obiwanceleri]

4 hours ago, jchd said:

Do you have something to backup such a vague assertion?

I've tried to use Booleans many times because it makes sense, right? On and off?

But so far I've had to do a lot poking around to make it work. I'm thinking at this point the variable is interpreted as string instead of a boolean value in some cases. Might be my bad too.

The short of the story is that when I migrated from a boolean 'true' and 'false' to an integer '1' and '0', all my issues stopped.

For your information, I was using it as part of a checkmark a user can toggle on or off. 

I'd love to share the code but the interface and comments are in french and I couldn't be bothered to translate everything LOL

Hope this clears it up a bit?

[obiwanceleri]

1 hour ago, Danp2 said:

@obiwanceleriI think you are trying to use the wrong function to perform this task. Have you tried declaring the function like this?

Func _CW($i1 = Default, $i2 = Default, $i3 = Default, $i4 = Default, $i5 = Default, $i6 = Default, $i7 = Default, $i8 = Default)

Then you could check with something like

If $i1 <> Default Then ConsoleWrite($i1 & @TAB & VarGetType($i1) & @CRLF)

 

If you believe this is future-proof / better code then "Default" it shall be!

Thanks!

[jchd]

6 hours ago, obiwanceleri said:

I'm thinking at this point the variable is interpreted as string instead of a boolean value in some cases.

Thayt's still very vague. Post short runable code to demonstrate this.

6 hours ago, obiwanceleri said:

the interface and comments are in french

I'm French too.

[obiwanceleri]

On 2/12/2022 at 6:29 AM, jchd said:

Thayt's still very vague. Post short runable code to demonstrate this.

I'm French too.

Sent you a mail in private.

[jchd]

Answered.