Is it possible to add #flags to a function like #Quiet?
fn functionname var1 var2 #flag =
(
if flag do print "hello"
)
input functionname 1 2 #flag
instead of :
input functioname 1 2 flag:true
Adding # in front of a variable classifies it as a name class in Maxscript terms. Try looking up the various documents on “Names” or “Name Values” in the Maxscript help. I think the issue is you need #flag (or (flag as name)) in your function and not just the flag variable.
Or am I totally missing what you are trying to do?
-Eric
I think what he’d like to do is be able to make his own functions that use common flags, like #face or #quiet, etc.
Currently you can just pass in those # values (they are passed in as names, as mentioned), but as to make them optional, I don’t think there is a way. You’d have to say
fn myFunction arg1 flag =
if flag == #quiet do print "shhhh...."
myFunction myArg #quiet
But if you didn’t pass in the flag, it’d throw an error.
Right Rob hit the problem on the head. I want optional variables that don’t have to be defined. I only want to know if they were called not giving them a variable.
Lots of built in functions have this but I can’t find any information on how to do it myself.
Hi Gavin,
you can add additional parameters to a function without the needing to define them during the call with the : (colon)
function sampleFunc var1 var2: =
(
print var1
print var2
)
sampleFunc "test1"
-- "test1"
-- unsupplied
sampleFunc "test1" var2:#test2 -- this is a "Name" variable but could be any datatype
-- "test1"
-- #test2
Both function calls are legal. You can perform a test on the “unsupplied” value.
- Enrico
Still not really what the OP wanted. You still need to use the keyword argument (var2) to submit an argument, it isn’t really a ‘flag’.
On that thought, though, you could just have a generic “flags:” variable that takes an array of flags. Not the ideal solution, but probably as close as you can get.
Rob, you’re right, I’m sorry, I didn’t see that “instead of”. Gavin already considered and discarded my solution.
The only way I see to feed a function with an arbitrary number of arguments, is by using a single array, which holds values and optional flags too, but it’s absolutely not the solution to the current question.
You can also define a local variable to work as a flag higher in the scope, outside the function, and set it by hand before calling the function. This is not so good as well.
- Enrico