Just tp spell it out for any others interested,
-syntax- looks at what is in the local macro with
name 0.
By default, local 0 contains whatever you typed
on the command line after the command name, so
if I type
. foo bar bazz
This fires up command -foo- and passes to -foo-
a macro 0 containing
bar bazz
and -syntax- can then process that macro. So if
the -syntax- were
syntax varlist
-bar- and -bazz- should be variable names in
your dataset (if not, -syntax- will throw you
out).
However, you can assign stuff to local 0, as
here with -gettoken-, and even by
local 0 <whatever>
and then get -syntax- to process that. However,
beware that this will zap existing macros like
varlist, if, in and options, so save them first.
This kind of thing is especially useful for
any mix of standard and idiosyncratic syntax,
which is where we started.
Nick
[email protected]
David Harrison
> Nick
>
> Many thanks for your suggestions.
>
> After much experimenting, I would add "bind" to the gettoken
> statement to avoid any problems parsing functions that
> contain commas (this seems to be a very useful option I had
> not come across before).
>
> Otherwise, this is pretty much what I have ended up with (but
> a little more complicated to split off the name from the
> beginning, as this turns out to be important for the real
> program). Bundling if and in together has saved a lot of work
> though. I also like the idea of using -syntax- to parse the
> rest once the dodgy bits have been removed - very handy.
>
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