send command and comma in parameter

[TommiG]

Dear colleagues,
I am new in the LiveCode universe, please forgive me, but found a problem I don't know how to handle.

I wrote a simple command "LoadFromFile" which accepts a valid file name in an image control.
When I like to use it inside a Button onMouseup handler and have to call it outside of the normal message path, I learned to use the send command.
But curiously the send command accepts a string. Therefore we have to write:

send "LoadFromFile " & tFileName to image "foo"

But sometimes filenames contains commas and maybe other funny characters, e.g. "my,best,image.jpg" is a valid filename!
Now as my LoadFromFile command accepts only one parameter, it sees only the front part of the file name (in the previous sampe "my").
How do I prevent this?
Do I really have to send custom command names and their parameters as strings???
Do I have to escape special characters in strings which have a special meaning in the LiveCode language?

Thank you in advance,
Thomas

[Dixie]

Thomas...

You could do something like this... say, in the script of a button

Code: Select all

on mouseUp
   put "myStangelyFormatted, fileName.jpg" into theFile
   loadFromFile theFile
end mouseUp

then say in the card script...

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on loadFromFile theFile
   put theFile
end loadFromFile

and then in this example... myStangelyFormatted, fileName.jpg ... will be returned in the msg box.

Dixie

[TommiG]

Dear Dixie,
thank for you answer. But calling a command in the message path is not really a problem.
But my command is not in the message path. It is in another control.
Therefore I have to use "send".

In my button script

Code: Select all

on mouseUp
   put "myStangelyFormatted, fileName.jpg" into theFile
   send "loadFromFile " & theFile to image "myImg"
end mouseUp

In my image script

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on loadFromFile theFile
   put theFile
end loadFromFile

and here the message box shows only "myStangelyFormatted".
Do you have a solution for this?
Thank you in advance.
Regards, Thomas

[Dixie]

Thomas...

Have a look at the 'dispatch' command in the dictionary... I think that this will be your friend in this case.
A quick example... let's say in the script of a button on card 1

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on mouseUp
   put "boo" into tData
   dispatch "updateField" with tData
end mouseUp

and then in the card or stack script

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on updateField tdata
   put tdata into fld 1 of card 2
end updateField

any help...?

Dixie

[TommiG]

Dear Dixie,

I tried

Code: Select all

on mouseUp
   put "myStangelyFormatted, fileName.jpg" into theFile
   dispatch "loadFromFile" to image "myImg" with theFile
end mouseUp

and this works now!!!
Thank you very much for your help.
Have a nice day.
Best regards,
Thomas

[FourthWorld]

Extra bonus points: not only is the syntax for passing arguments with "dispatch" slightly simpler than with "send", but in terms of execution speed "dispatch" performs measurably faster (not enough to be noticeable, but if you need to use such things frequently it can add up).