Forums Scripts & Popups part of my script - i cant see the if error

This is part of a larger script ive made, i keep getting an if error every 30 secs when the timer goes off, and i cant tell why

if ($idle >= $calc(60 * $remove(%z,m)) )

blah ty lol, knew it wuz sumtin simple

The problem is here: (and in the other /timer command)


Three reasons:
- You forgot a parenthesis in the condition.
- When you launch a timer, $idents & %variables which are 'affixed' with parenthesis in conditions or $ident()
are not right away evaluated. They'll just be evaluated when the timer performs the command (passed in parameters),
after the delay specified (here 30 seconds). Knowing that, you can now see your variable %z, created via /var,
will not exist 30 seconds later.
- In timers, you can not right away use "{ } |" caracters, because mIRC evaluates them.

So, you can try one of these two solutions:

1°) $(<value>,) allows not to evaluate the value. And with spaces in the condition, $ident and %variable are evaluated
when you launch the timer, so not after the delay.


2°) You put yours commands in an alias, like CheckIdle here, with %z as parameters, because it's the only %variable
which has to be right away evaluated.


I hope that will work. If it's not the case, consider it like an idea on the good way

thats quite unneccessary you only have to escape the | , also the %z is evaluated twice. Once when you send it to the timer and once when the timer is executed.
try this:

cleanest thing to do is put the timeroff declaration in the afk2 alias.

There's more to escape, try your /timer line in mIRC with immediately issuing a /timers after it. Will look something like this:

* Timer 1 10s delay if ($me == echo -a | echo -a yay! (DALnet)

$me) evaluated to $null ... and the { } are gone.

People can find a little in depth information about how/what should be escaped when passing params to a timer here

Although the best advice is always: create an alias, and call that alias instead. No worries of double evaluating and takes no effort.

EDIT: Note to people wondering: obviously you need to execute the timer command from the command line with double slashes // to reproduce what it would do in a script.

I was using if ($me == Mpdreamz) in the editor
gives me:

if ($me == $me) doesnt evaluate indeed, i stand corrected.

Even with using a hardcoded name it still doesnt give you the required result because those braces {} are gone.

Compare:

//timer 1 0 if (5 == 6) { echo -a inside braces $(|,) echo -a still inside braces }

--> it echoes "still inside braces" whilst it shouldn't as 5 != 6

with

//timer 1 0 if (5 == 6) $({,) echo -a inside braces $(|,) echo -a still inside braces $(},)

--> works correctly


To anyone reading these posts: do not put code in a timer but in an alias, unless you are experienced enough to know all of its possible pitfalls and associated dangers.

Never gonna get that wrong again, my appologies to CoolWave

Hum, ok, accepted ! ;P

Btw in case you're interested, regarding this evaluation behaviour of parameters passed to a timer there is something quite interesting:

if you have a set/unset command in the timer, then the variable following it will not be evaluated (it will be with /var though) so if you do decide to pass something to a timer, then the variable that you want to set doesn't need escaping when used with set/unset.

Observe:

//.timer 1 1 set -l %a 5 $(|) set %a bla $(|) unset %a 7 $(|) var %a = lol | timers

The message displayed by the /timers command shows that all %a's did not get evaluated except for the one that was set with the /var command.

It doesnt even need to even be an actual command, as long as there is the string "set or unset" followed by optional flags and a variable, then the variable will not evaluate when the timer is set.

//.timer 1 1 echo -a hmm set %a how weird | timers

As you can also see, the pipe | doesn't necessarily need to be escaped with the level 0 of eval, just having it not be surrounded by a space is sufficient for it not to evaluate to a pipe. This doesn't work for other characters and even produces flaky results, try: //echo -a $({) VS $(}). Therefore, as a rule of thumb, I always use the universal way to escape a character being $eval(<char>,0) or shorter $(<char>,)

Additionally, instead of escaping characters with using $eval of level 0, you can of course also use their ascii representation like $chr(124) is a pipe.

Note that this behaviour of set/unset is only with /timer, not with scon/scid where double evaluation also occurs.

//scon -r set %a 7
--> will give: * /set: invalid parameters, because it evaluated the %a making the command "set -s 7" (assuming you didn't have a global variable %a in your variables list of course)

This wasn't directed at you, it's for anyone who cares.

Already noted for /set global, and /var only as command, but for /set -l it's very interessant (never thought of that)
Strange that doesn't work with /scid...
However, in a string it's very less interessant

For the pipe without level 0 of eval, i use it recently , but not sure of the result here (not tested the code before posting)

Thanks for this complement, useful !

Odd behaviour to say the least

you spend wholey to much time using mirc. <grin>

Hehe, so do you :tongue:

I've been spending a lot more time in front of MSVC++ lately though, a nice break from mIRC.