Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Path: utzoo!lsuc!dave
From: dave@lsuc.on.ca (David Sherman|LSUC|Toronto)
Subject: Re: a bug in the go command (i think! )
Message-ID: <1990Mar16.001124.3744@lsuc.on.ca>
Summary: not a bug
Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
References: <16871@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 90 00:11:24 GMT

abdenour@mist.CS.ORST.EDU (Abdennour A. MOUSSAOUI) writes:
>I think there is a bug in the go command!
>
>go to card "14"    it doesn't go to card named "14" but instead it goes to card
>                   number 14. (assuming they aren't the same cards)
>so that (go to card "14") behaves just like (go to card 14)

It's not a bug.  It's a result of the totally loose typing
in Hypercard variables.  There is NO DISTINCTION between "14"
and 14; they are identical for all purposes in Hypertalk.
When you say "go to card xyz", it evaluates xyz; if it's a number,
Hypercard assumes you mean the card number; otherwise, it tries
for a card with that name.

Moral: don't give cards names which are numbers.

There are some other really strange effects of Hypercard's
"programmer-friendly" design:

"book" = "Book"  evaluates to true
"book" > "Book"  evaluates to true
"book" <= "Book" evaluates to false

That's because >, <, >= and <= all mean arithmetic
comparison, where ASCII 'b' is after ASCII 'B', while
'=' (or "is") means textual comparison, which is case-insensitive.
Beware!

David Sherman
Toronto
-- 
Moderator, mail.yiddish
{ uunet!attcan  att  utzoo }!lsuc!dave          dave@lsuc.on.ca