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fScan Reference Manual, Chapter 4 (Variables): Contents
fScan internal variables
fScan supports several different types of internal variables. Values of some variables are global – they do not change when you move from one active window to another. Other variables are workspace or data set specific – their values will change depending on which window is currently active.
Accessing data variables
In general, data variable values can be accessed by specifying the name of the variable, preceded by the '$' character (or '_' character to make command-line scripting easier). To get the status of a variable, substitute '?' for '$'; the status is -1 if the named variable is not defined, it is 0 if it is defined but empty, and it is a positive value (the size of the variable) if it is defined and not empty.
For example:
- -echo Window: $thiswin WorkSpace $wsnum ; display name and workspace of current active window
- -echo Varb: ?curdir ?thiswin ?myvarb ; test whether these variables are defined
Variable operators:
- $varbname - the value of the named variable (_varbname works the same)
- ?varbname - the status of the named variable (0=undefined, 1=defined)
The '$' character is also used to identify fScan special functions of the form: $funcname(). Examples are:
- $exists(filename) - does the named file exist (0=no, 1=regular file, 2=directory)?
- $filepath(filename) - return the full path to the named file
- $relpath(filename) - return the relative path (from $curdir)
- $date(filename) - return a string containing the file modification date (yyyymmddhhmmss)
- $age(filename) - return the age of the named file in seconds
- tables
- listitem
- listflag
See Also:
Set, If, and Echo commands.
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