RE: Long expressions using MAX and MIN in CALC fields

["Redman, Russell O." <Russell.Redman@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca>]

Actually, Andrew, changing the parser to use infix notation was trivial, as
my original message indicated.  The only change needed is that two-line
addition to the table of operators.  I have tested this and verified that it
works.  If there is a pseudo-standard (g++) that uses ">?" and "<?" for the
infix MAX and MIN operators, then I will cheerfully switch to that.

I think it would be hard to modify the parser to recognise variable numbers
of arguments.  I much prefer this notation, but I really do not see an easy
way to do it.

I am using genSubRecords in other places, but they have overhead of their
own and are not as easily understood or debugged as a calcoutRecord.  The
calcoutRecord does EXACTLY what I want, except that the CALC field was too
small for the expression in its original form.

Thanks for the thoughts!

Dr. Russell O. Redman
Tel: (250) 363-6917 | Fax: (250) 363-0045
<mailto:Russell.Redman@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca>
National Research Council Canada | Conseil national de recherches Canada
5071 West Saanich Road           | 5071 West Saanich Road
Victoria, B. C. V9E 2E7          | Victoria, C.-B. V9E 2E7
Government of Canada             | Gouvernement du Canada

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrew Johnson [mailto:anj@aps.anl.gov]
> Sent: Wednesday, 2003 February 26 4:48 PM
> To: Redman, Russell O.
> Cc: Tech-Talk (E-mail)
> Subject: Re: Long expressions using MAX and MIN in CALC fields
> 
> 
> Redman, Russell O. wrote:
> > I would like to suggest a small enhancement for the calcRecord,
> > calcoutRecord and waitRecord code that uses the postfix 
> routine.  This
> > enhancement will allow the MAX and MIN operators to be used 
> on many more
> > input fields than is currently possible due to the limited number of
> > characters permitted in the CALC fields of these records.
> 
> I like the idea that MAX and MIN should be able to take 
> variable numbers 
> of arguments, using this syntax:
> 
> >   MAX(A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I)
> 
> However I'm not sure how easy this would be to add to the parser.
> 
> > I know I can do the calculation with a select record
> > and a calcout, but these records are used in a time 
> sensitive part of my
> > database and the calculation is nested quite deeply.  If at 
> all possible, I
> > would like to complete the operation using a single calcout record.
> 
> I would have thought that a subroutine record would be significantly 
> faster than using a calc for this - admitedly it's not going 
> to be quite 
> as flexible at runtime, but a lot less work in the short term than 
> changing the calculation engine and parser.
> 
> If you need the output capability of calcout, you might want 
> to look at 
> Andy Foster's genSub record which is an enhanced subroutine 
> record that 
> provides output links.
> 
> > Unfortunately, most of the obvious punctuation characters have
> > already been used for other operations, but I suggest that 
> "|<" and ">|"
> > might be suitable as binary MIN and MAX operators, respectively.
> 
> The GNU C++ compiler has a built-in extension for MIN and MAX 
> that uses <? 
> and >? respectively as the binary operators.  Although I'd 
> prefer that we 
> stick as close as possiblt to the standard C operators and function 
> syntax, if a variable-length MIN() and MAX() can't easily be 
> developed 
> it's probably better to regard g++ as a sort of standard and 
> re-use their 
> operators.
> 
> - Andrew
> -- 
> Tongue-twister: Say "Peggy Babcock" 10 times without stumbling...
>