When crafting a function it's often useful to provide info about any errors that occur within it.
Commands have a great mechanism for this: we can put error info into the result, and the calling handler can check the result just as it does for any built-in command. But functions don't have this luxury, as the result is the return value. Two types of solutions that have become popular over the years: - XFCN-style: Error info is returned directly from the function, and the calling handler needs to check for it with something like: get foobar() if word 1 of it = "error" then answer line 2 of it exit to top end if This approach has been popular with XFCN authors for years, but the problem is that it's potentially ambiguous: what if the function works correctly but the first word in the returned data happens to be "error"? - Separate function: Similar to how the sysError function works, you put any error info in a global or static var with a separate function to access it: get foobar() if fooErr() is not empty then answer fooErr() exit to top end if This completely separates returned data from error info unambiguously, but requires a little more effort to define functions reliably with it (it needs to be cleared at the top of any function that uses it). Which approach do you prefer? One of these? Something else? -- Richard Gaskin Fourth World Media Corporation Developer of WebMerge 2.2: Publish any database on any site ___________________________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.FourthWorld.com Tel: 323-225-3717 AIM: FourthWorldInc _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution