Evaluate text of field

[doobox]

Hi there..
Stuck on a real simple one probably..

I have a field "test" contents of the field are for example "1+2=3"

I can do this:

Code: Select all

do field "test" as applescript
put the result into field "answer"

And i get the expected "true"

BUT..!
I'd rather not do things like that if i can help it.
So is there a way to convert the text of a field from a literal string, so it can be evaluated normally...?

[sturgis]

look at value()

with your example if you have 1 + 2 = 3 in field 1 then executing value(field 1) in the msg box returns true.
Changing it to 1 + 2 = 4 and then executing value(field 1) returns false as expected.

[doobox]

Perfect.. Thank you. That's the function a new must have existed.
I wonder how expensive it is.
I will be iterating in a repeat loop, and i need that answer real fast. We will see

[sturgis]

Don't use the field directly (for your list)
put the field contents into a variable and iterate through that.

If the list is REALLY long, use the "for each" form of repeat rather than "with i = 1 to..." form

Should be faster that way.

[dunbarx]

Hi.

What Sturgis said. Note that this works with text and lots of other expressions, like "a < b", 4 is an integer, "1/1/12 < 2/1/12".

All true.

And if you only had: "3 + 5", you would get "8".

Be careful, though. Try: "4 is a date"

Craig Newman

[doobox]

Thank's Craig...

Yep.. this can be real handy, when your sure you know what your evaluating.
Like you say though, it could quickly lead to unexpected bugs if one's not careful.

Try "4 is a char" that was pretty unexpected also "Throws an ERROR..!"