Re: [ferret_users] non-standard variable names - inconsistent behavior (version 6.7)

[Ansley Manke <ansley.b.manke@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi Hella,
I think it'll see the variable if you specify it in upper-case.

   yes? list `'ABC',return=isize`

This is not quite what's described in the documentation,
http://ferret.pmel.noaa.gov/Ferret/documentation/users-guide/variables-xpressions/VARIABLES#_VPINDEXENTRY_filevars

where if the file variable is lower-case, what you showed should work. 
So we'll look into that.

Ansley

On 3/8/2013 5:43 AM, Hella Riede wrote:
> Dear ferreters,
>
> I have come across an inconsistent behavior for non-standard variable 
> names:
>
> I load a file into ferret, which introduces non-standard variable 
> names, i.e. including a dash as in 'N4-12'. I know these variable 
> names can be often handled by enclosing them in single quotes:
>
> yes? list `N4-12,return=lsize`
>  **ERROR: variable unknown or not in data set: N4
>
> yes? list `'N4-12',return=lsize`
>              VARIABLE : constant
>           3498.
>
> However, this does not work for standard variable names:
>
> yes? let abc = 2
> yes? list `abc,return=isize`
>              VARIABLE : constant
>           1.000
>
> yes? list `'abc',return=isize`
>  **ERROR: variable unknown or not in data set: 'abc'
>
>
> Thus, I need to figure out first for each variable whether it has a 
> standard name or not to decide whether I need to use single quotes. It 
> would be more consistent and convenient to be able to enclose any 
> variable name - standard or not - in single quotes. Sorry if this has 
> already been fixed since version 6.7.
>
> Greetings,
> Hella