REQUEST: String format syntax in String Param Expression

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on October 12, 2012 at 3:00pm

Normally expressions are applied after the data is collected (and converted to whatever the local type is). If you want to use Format() you might want that to be applied before the number becomes a string no?

Then, it's also possible to perform some sort of string operation (say, convert to upper case), in which case you want the breps to be converted to strings before the expression is executed. 

How to solve this conflict?

--

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by Andrew Heumann on October 12, 2012 at 5:16pm

the problem is always more complex than I imagined. Would it be terribly difficult to evaluate the expression on the native data type first, within a try-catch block, where the catch then .ToString()s the data before trying the evaluation a second time? is that super inefficient?

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on October 13, 2012 at 3:19am

It's not inefficient so much, but it is ambiguous. What if the expression works before and after?

A possible solution is to not allow an expression as such, but just a formatting rule and always apply it before the data is converted to string.

--

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia