Re: Variable number of args to 'go' script...

[Ansley Manke <ansley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Gary,
A couple ideas.  I had worked out this relatively brute force
way at some point.  You can have lines like this at the start
of
your script, if you know the maximum number of arguments there
may be:

! The "false" is the default value if no argument is supplied.
! Anything else ("*") translates to "true".

let narg = 0
if $1"false|*>true" then let narg = 1 endif
if $2"false|*>true" then let narg = 2 endif
if $3"false|*>true" then let narg = 3 endif
if $4"false|*>true" then let narg = 4 endif
if $5"false|*>true" then let narg = 5 endif
...
list narg
 

Or, here's an answer to a similar question you asked a while back.
http://ferret.wrc.noaa.gov/Ferret/Mail_Archives/fu_2001/msg00009.html
One might be able to work out something using the PPL edit commands in
Appendix B, section 7 of the users guide - maybe the $ELEMENT function,
perhaps along with the $LENGTH function could be used to work out a
way to parse the result of the concatenated arguments and find out how many
arguments there are.

Ansley Manke

Gary Strand wrote:

I don't recall if I asked this once before.

I'd like to use a go script with a variable number of args (up to 99 under 5.4,
IIRC). For example:

yes? go plot X A B C D ! will plot field X from files A, B, C, and D
yes? go plot X A D B   ! will plot field X from files A, B, and D only
yes? go plot X A       ! will plot field X from file  A only

Is there a straightforward way (akin to csh's "$#argv") to get the number of
args and then parse them (akin to $argv[1..N]) in FERRET?

Or would I be better off just building the 'go' script via perl or csh? Thanks.
--
/\        Gary Strand (303) 497-1336                                NCAR ML262A
  \_][    www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/strandwg                      1850 Table Mesa Dr
      \___strandwg@ucar.edu                       Boulder, Colorado, USA  80305

--
Ansley Manke  Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory  Seattle WA  (206)526-6246