File System Typescript Commands

These typescript commands deal with reading or writing files, saving or loading models, etc.

Include

Reads in a module or library from a file on disk.

include 0, class ident, #, #, #, #, filename

Example:

include 0, LinkLibrary Distribution_variati,2,2,0,0,C:\Program Files\Lumina\Analytica 4.2\Libraries\Distribution Variations.ANA

The various numbers are fields that were used on the Macintosh to identify disk volume IDs and other things specific to the Mac OS. On windows, the filename contains the relevant information. If the file path is relative, it is interpreted relative to the CurrentModelDirectory.

To do: More detail on what those Mac-numbers are.

Update

Puts Analytica into an update (merge) mode, so that it allows redeclarations of already created objects. Existing attributes of such objects will be overwritten by new attributes. This mode is used when merging a new version of a module or library into an existing model.

EndUpdate

Ends the Update mode begun with the Update command.

Save

This command saves the model or selected linked modules to disk. It does not work well prior to 4.4.3, and is not supported. More detailed documentation is at Save.

SoftwareVersion

When a model file is being loaded, this command specifies the release number of the Analytica software that the file was saved from. If the version specified is later than the current release number, the command triggers the display of a warning stating that the model is from a more recent version of Analytica.

If the specified release number is earlier than the current release, configures the Analytica reader and parser to accept the format and syntax that was in use at the time the model was saved, and may also trigger certain conversions to be made as the file is loaded to ensure backward compatibility (so that models from older releases continue to run in newer releases). The configuration remains active until the file being read is closed.

This command is usually the first command appearing inside a model or module file saved by Analytica.

Obfuscated

The presence of this command in an input channel marks the input channel being in an obfuscated format. The characters read from that point on are assumed to be encrypted.

You do not want to type this into the typescript window (otherwise, you'd have to type everything in encrypted form, which presumably you would not know how to do).

Model or module files saved from Analytica Enterprise using "Save A Copy..." with the obfuscate checkbox will write this command, then write the remainder of the file in an obfuscated (encrypted) format.

SkipOverNextLines

Introduced in Analytica 4.2

Ignores the next typescript line. With a number, e.g.:

SkipOverNextLines 3

ignore the next 3 typescript lines. When used with version-gated comments, this provides a way to conditional typescript, where the typescript executed is different when executed from different releases of Analytica. For example:

{!40200|SkipOverNextLines}

Error("Earlier than Analytica 4.2")

{!40200|MsgBox("Analytica 4.2 or later")}

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The following commands have something to do with File output, but they may belong in the deprecated category.

ResumeRecord

There seems to have been some sort of facility in Demos to open a "record channel", which I think is an output file. These commands open a file as the current output channel, suspend and resume this as the current output channel, and close the channel.

I've never used it or seen it used, and don't know if it still works, or what it is useful for. This is a feature from very early days of Demos.

EndPhoto

The photo file/buffer is logs output that is printed to the typescript window to a file.

There is a "Photo" feature in ADE, which is documented, and indeed does exactly this -- keeps a log of all typescript interaction since ADE started.

To start capturing output, type

Photo

an open file dialog pops up, allowing you to specify the output file for the log. When you are done, type

EndPhoto

you can then view the log from a text editor.

I found this feature useful recently for debugging a problem having to do with how a large model was evaluating. I wanted to see a trace of the order in which variables were being evaluated (and to compare this with an earlier version). The very long trace didn't fit in the typescript window, so I used the Photo feature to create a log of variable evaluations as follows:

> Verbosity : 4    { To print the evaluation trace }
> Photo            { To start the log -- then I specified a filename: log.txt }
{ In the GUI, I loaded my model and showed result for the output variable }
> EndPhoto
{ Then I loaded log.txt into a text editor }