Lingo in a Nutshell

List of Examples

Example Description Page

1-1 Hello World 6

1-2 Nested Handler Calls 8

1-3 A Recursive Function 9

1-4 Calling a Function Non-recursively 10

1-5 Handler Scope 13

1-6 Returning a Value from a Function 16

1-7 Returning Prematurely from a Function 17

1-8 Creating Scripts at Runtime 21

1-9 Using Local Variables 26

1-10 Using Parameters 27

1-11 Using Global Variables 28

1-12 Using Property Variables 30

1-13 Common Errors with Global Variables 33

1-14 Passing Globals Variables as Parameters 34

1-15 Persistent Variables 35

1-16 One-Time Initialization 36

1-17 Comments 39

1-18 Handler Declarations 42

1-19 Nested Multi-Line Structure Errors 43

1-20 Nested If Statements 45

1-21 Common If Statement Errors 46

1-22 Nesting If Statements Properly 47

1-23 Using End If Improperly 48

1-24 Case Statements 50

1-25 Repeat Loops 51

1-26 Nested Repeat Loops 53

1-27 Customized Repeat Loops 53

1-28 Infinite Loops 54

1-29 A Handler That Accepts Parameters 56

1-30 A Simple Generalized Behavior 58

1-31 A HardCoded Function 58

1-32 A Generalized FileExists Function 59

1-33 Using Generalized Functions 60

1-34 Special Treatment of First Argument to a Function Call 61

1-35 Passing a Script Instance as an Argument 62

1-36 Function Accepting Varying Arguments 63

1-37 Placeholder Arguments 64

1-38 Variable Number of Parameters 65

1-39 Verifying Parameters 66

2-1 Basic Frame and Sprite Scripts 71

2-2 The Phantom Script Bug 75

2-3 Locating Individual Script Types 85

2-4 Primary Event Handlers 88

2-5 Intercepting Built-In Lingo Commands 89

2-6 Using the Me Script Instance Variable 92

2-7 Determining the Stacking Order of a Behavior 93

2-8 Determining a Sprite's Number from Within an Attached Behavior 93

2-9 The SpriteNum of me Property 94

2-10 Sequence of Movie-Related Events 98

2-11 Message Processing Order 104

3-1 Wrapper Scripts 116

3-2 Convenience Functions 117

3-3 Ultra-Convenience Functions 117

3-4 Overriding Built-in Lingo Functions 118

3-5 Centralized Code 119

3-6 Optional Debugging Code 119

3-7 Testing Shortcuts 119

3-8 Debugging Shortcuts 120

3-9 Easter Eggs 120

3-10 Checking the Return Value 121

3-11 Checking for a List Parameter 121

3-12 Assuming Default Values 122

3-13 Tracking the User's Score 124

3-14 Fixing a "Variable Used Before Assigned a Value" Error 131

3-15 A Conditional Breakpoint 134

3-16 Using Put From the Message Window and Scripts 138

3-17 Using Trace, TraceLoad, and TraceLogFile 138

3-18 Simple Override of Default Alert Dialog 139

3-19 The AlertHook 139

3-20 Using On AlertHook 141

3-21 A Simple Sample Debugging Session 143

3-21a Initial attempt to create a handler 143

3-21b Improved repeat loop including "with" 143

3-21c Improved repeat loop including "end repeat" 144

3-21d Attempt to initialize myList 145

3-21e Corrected initialization of myList 145

3-21f A completed handler 146

5-1 Simulating Constants Using Globals 171

5-2 Replacing Integer Codes with Symbols 173

5-3 Avoiding Evaluation of the Second Clause in a Compound Expression 175

5-4 XOR Logical Function 175

5-5 Implicit and Explicit Comparisons 176

5-6 Subtle Errors in Compound Comparisons 177

6-1 Creating Property Lists on Keyboards Without Square Brackets 182

6-2 Two Variables Pointing to a Single List 184

6-3 Dissociating Two Lists 185

6-4 Modifying Lists Passed to a Handler 185

6-5 Using a List in a Handler Without Modifying the Original List 185

6-6 Using Lists to Return Multiple Values from a Handler 186

6-7 Creating and Reading Multidimensional Lists 187

6-8 Sort Order of Linear and Property Lists 190

6-9 Recursively Sorting Sublists 191

6-10 Reverse Sort 191

6-11 Reversing Unsorted Lists 192

6-12 Populating a List with Zeroes 193

6-13 Case-Sensitive Deletion of String Values 195

6-14 Case-Insensitive Deletion of Symbolic Values 195

6-15 Deleting a Range of Elements 197

6-16 Case-Sensitive Searching of String Values 197

6-17 Math Operations Performed on Entire Lists 200

6-18 Math Operations Performed with Two Lists 200

6-19 Preventing Non-list Arguments from Being Passed to List Commands 202

6-20 Extracting Unknown Properties from a List 206

6-21 Printing Each Element's Position in a List 208

6-22 Printing Each Element's Value Only 208

6-23 Creating a List of Random Numbers 208

6-24 Incorrect (Nonrandom) List Creation 209

6-25 Randomizing an Existing List 209

6-26 A Nonrepeating Random Number Generator 210

6-27 Converting a Property List to a Linear List 211

6-28 Creating a Property List from Two Linear Lists 211

6-29 Converting a Text String to a Lingo List 214

7-1 Chunk Expressions 216

7-2 Assigning Text to a Field Cast Member 217

7-3 String Function Practice 222

7-4 String Concatenation Practice 222

7-5 ItemDelimiter Practice 224

7-6 Determining the Drive ID using the ItemDelimiter 225

7-7 Evaluating User Input 225

7-8 Corrected Search-and-Replace Routine 226

8-1 Integer Versus Floating-Point Division 229

8-2 Modulo Division Practice 230

8-3 Converting Time Units Using Integer, Modulo, and Floating-Point Division 230

8-4 Clipping a Value to a Valid Range 233

8-5 Checking If Values Are Within Range 233

8-6 Summing a List of Values 233

8-7 Averaging a List of Values 234

8-8 Recursively Counting Elements in a List 235

8-9 Calculating the Log Base 10 236

8-10 Calculating Powers 236

8-11 Exponential Notation 237

8-12 Converting Between Radians and Degrees 237

8-13 Calculating the Area of a Circle 238

8-14 Elliptical Motion Behavior 238

8-15 Preventing Overflow Conditions While Calculating Factorials 240

8-16 Recursive Factorial Function 241

8-17 Integer Rounding 241

8-18 Integer Truncation 242

8-19 Float Rounding 242

8-20 Float Truncation 242

8-21 Temperature Conversion 243

8-22 Generating Random Numbers in Various Ranges 244

8-23 Simulating a Pair of Dice 245

8-24 Simulating a Coin Flip 245

8-25 One-Eyed Jacks Are Wild 246

8-26 Randomizing an Existing List 247

9-1 Basic Mouse Events 252

9-2 What's My Sprite Number? 256

9-3 Responding to Both Single- and Double-Clicks 262

9-4 Preventing a Double-Click from Executing the Single-Click Action 262

9-5 Preventing Rapid-Fire Clicks 262

9-6 Dragging a Sprite 270

9-7 Build a Better Mouse Trap 270

10-1 Accumulating and Counting Keystrokes 278

10-2 toring the State of Modifier Keys 282

10-3 Preventing the User from Aborting 285

10-4 Trapping the Quit Keys 285

10-5 Setting the Insertion Point 287

10-6 Setting the Highlight in a Field 288

10-7 Disallowing Characters 289

10-8 Allowing Only Specific Characters 289

10-9 Password Entry Field 290

10-10 Special Handling of Editing Keys 292

10-11 Trapping the Numeric Keypad Keys 293

10-12 Key Trap 296

10-13 Passing Key Events from MIAWs 298

10-14 Your Own KeyCode Tester 299

11-1 A Custom Timer 302

11-2 Delay Command versus Custom Wait Function 303

11-3 Waiting for Media 303

11-4 Time Unit Conversion Utilities 310

11-5 Converting Between Frames to HH:MM:SS 311

11-6 Score Duration and Arbitrary Conversion 312

11-7 Projector Expiration and Y2K 314

11-8 Timing Performance 315

11-9 Stop Watch Timer 317

11-10 Symbolic Version of Conversion Utility 317

12-1 A Ludicrously Simple Behavior 322

12-2 Writing Simple Scripts Via the Behavior Inspector 322

12-3 A simplified beeping Behavior 324

12-4 A Trivial Procedural Example 326

12-5 A Procedural Stopwatch 327

12-6 Creating a Child Object from a Parent Script 329

12-7 Instantiating and Using a Child Object 330

12-8 An Object-Oriented Stopwatch 330

12-9 Testing a Timer Object 331

12-10 Paradise Lost? Not as Lost as the Reader! 332

12-11 Child Object References 336

12-12 Reading Properties of Child Objects 337

12-13 The GetBehaviorDescription Method 340

12-14 The GetPropertyDescriptionList Method 341

12-15 Behaving Yourself in Paradise 344

12-16 The RunPropertyDialog Method 344

12-17 The ActorList 347

12-18 Getting Attached Behaviors 348

12-19 Adding Behaviors At Runtime 349

13-1 ShowXlib Output for Director for Macintosh 351

13-2 The Output from NetLingo's mMessageList() 352

13-3 Relief from mMessageList() 352

13-4 Deciphering FileIO mMessageList() 353

13-5 Using Instance-Level Methods 355

13-6 Listing Installed Lingo Scripting Xtras from Lingo 356

13-7 Checking Whether a Specific Lingo Scripting Xtra is Installed 357

13-8 Deciphering mDescribe 360

13-9 Using an XObject 361

13-10 Using an XFCN or XCMD 362

14-1 Viewing File Type and Creator Codes 370

14-2 Moving Down or Up One Folder 373

14-3 Ensuring a file path separator 373

14-4 Extracting the FileName from a Path 374

14-5 Extracting Files in Subfolders 375

14-6 MUI File Save Dialog 375

14-7 Writing to a File 381

14-8 Reading from a File 383

14-9 SetFilterMask 384

14-10 SetFinderInfo and GetFinderInfo 384

14-11 Printing an External Text File 390

15-1 Standard Multibutton MUI Alert Dialog 391

19-1 The Fixed Case of Symbols 522

19-2 Checking If a Symbol Exists 523

19-3 Checking If an Asset Xtra is Installed 524

A-1 ASCII Table Printout 530

A-2 Test for Alpha Character 530

A-3 Test for Alpha Digit 530

C-1 Character Sort Order Ranking 555

C-2 Character Sort Order Ranking Showing ASCII Values 556

C-3 Convert to Uppercase 556

C-4 Distinguishing Between Cases 557

C-5 Intercepting Spaces 560

C-6 Trimming and Deleting Spaces 560

D-1 Using LINGO.INI to Configure a Projector 566

E-1 Error Handling 584

Example	Description	Page
1-1	Hello World	6
1-2	Nested Handler Calls	8
1-3	A Recursive Function	9
1-4	Calling a Function Non-recursively	10
1-5	Handler Scope	13
1-6	Returning a Value from a Function	16
1-7	Returning Prematurely from a Function	17
1-8	Creating Scripts at Runtime	21
1-9	Using Local Variables	26
1-10	Using Parameters	27
1-11	Using Global Variables	28
1-12	Using Property Variables	30
1-13	Common Errors with Global Variables	33
1-14	Passing Globals Variables as Parameters	34
1-15	Persistent Variables	35
1-16	One-Time Initialization	36
1-17	Comments	39
1-18	Handler Declarations	42
1-19	Nested Multi-Line Structure Errors	43
1-20	Nested If Statements	45
1-21	Common If Statement Errors	46
1-22	Nesting If Statements Properly	47
1-23	Using End If Improperly	48
1-24	Case Statements	50
1-25	Repeat Loops	51
1-26	Nested Repeat Loops	53
1-27	Customized Repeat Loops	53
1-28	Infinite Loops	54
1-29	A Handler That Accepts Parameters	56
1-30	A Simple Generalized Behavior	58
1-31	A HardCoded Function	58
1-32	A Generalized FileExists Function	59
1-33	Using Generalized Functions	60
1-34	Special Treatment of First Argument to a Function Call	61
1-35	Passing a Script Instance as an Argument	62
1-36	Function Accepting Varying Arguments	63
1-37	Placeholder Arguments	64
1-38	Variable Number of Parameters	65
1-39	Verifying Parameters	66
2-1	Basic Frame and Sprite Scripts	71
2-2	The Phantom Script Bug	75
2-3	Locating Individual Script Types	85
2-4	Primary Event Handlers	88
2-5	Intercepting Built-In Lingo Commands	89
2-6	Using the Me Script Instance Variable	92
2-7	Determining the Stacking Order of a Behavior	93
2-8	Determining a Sprite's Number from Within an Attached Behavior	93
2-9	The SpriteNum of me Property	94
2-10	Sequence of Movie-Related Events	98
2-11	Message Processing Order	104
3-1	Wrapper Scripts	116
3-2	Convenience Functions	117
3-3	Ultra-Convenience Functions	117
3-4	Overriding Built-in Lingo Functions	118
3-5	Centralized Code	119
3-6	Optional Debugging Code	119
3-7	Testing Shortcuts	119
3-8	Debugging Shortcuts	120
3-9	Easter Eggs	120
3-10	Checking the Return Value	121
3-11	Checking for a List Parameter	121
3-12	Assuming Default Values	122
3-13	Tracking the User's Score	124
3-14	Fixing a "Variable Used Before Assigned a Value" Error	131
3-15	A Conditional Breakpoint	134
3-16	Using Put From the Message Window and Scripts	138
3-17	Using Trace, TraceLoad, and TraceLogFile	138
3-18	Simple Override of Default Alert Dialog	139
3-19	The AlertHook	139
3-20	Using On AlertHook	141
3-21	A Simple Sample Debugging Session	143
3-21a	Initial attempt to create a handler	143
3-21b	Improved repeat loop including "with"	143
3-21c	Improved repeat loop including "end repeat"	144
3-21d	Attempt to initialize myList	145
3-21e	Corrected initialization of myList	145
3-21f	A completed handler	146
5-1	Simulating Constants Using Globals	171
5-2	Replacing Integer Codes with Symbols	173
5-3	Avoiding Evaluation of the Second Clause in a Compound Expression	175
5-4	XOR Logical Function	175
5-5	Implicit and Explicit Comparisons	176
5-6	Subtle Errors in Compound Comparisons	177
6-1	Creating Property Lists on Keyboards Without Square Brackets	182
6-2	Two Variables Pointing to a Single List	184
6-3	Dissociating Two Lists	185
6-4	Modifying Lists Passed to a Handler	185
6-5	Using a List in a Handler Without Modifying the Original List	185
6-6	Using Lists to Return Multiple Values from a Handler	186
6-7	Creating and Reading Multidimensional Lists	187
6-8	Sort Order of Linear and Property Lists	190
6-9	Recursively Sorting Sublists	191
6-10	Reverse Sort	191
6-11	Reversing Unsorted Lists	192
6-12	Populating a List with Zeroes	193
6-13	Case-Sensitive Deletion of String Values	195
6-14	Case-Insensitive Deletion of Symbolic Values	195
6-15	Deleting a Range of Elements	197
6-16	Case-Sensitive Searching of String Values	197
6-17	Math Operations Performed on Entire Lists	200
6-18	Math Operations Performed with Two Lists	200
6-19	Preventing Non-list Arguments from Being Passed to List Commands	202
6-20	Extracting Unknown Properties from a List	206
6-21	Printing Each Element's Position in a List	208
6-22	Printing Each Element's Value Only	208
6-23	Creating a List of Random Numbers	208
6-24	Incorrect (Nonrandom) List Creation	209
6-25	Randomizing an Existing List	209
6-26	A Nonrepeating Random Number Generator	210
6-27	Converting a Property List to a Linear List	211
6-28	Creating a Property List from Two Linear Lists	211
6-29	Converting a Text String to a Lingo List	214
7-1	Chunk Expressions	216
7-2	Assigning Text to a Field Cast Member	217
7-3	String Function Practice	222
7-4	String Concatenation Practice	222
7-5	ItemDelimiter Practice	224
7-6	Determining the Drive ID using the ItemDelimiter	225
7-7	Evaluating User Input	225
7-8	Corrected Search-and-Replace Routine	226
8-1	Integer Versus Floating-Point Division	229
8-2	Modulo Division Practice	230
8-3	Converting Time Units Using Integer, Modulo, and Floating-Point Division	230
8-4	Clipping a Value to a Valid Range	233
8-5	Checking If Values Are Within Range	233
8-6	Summing a List of Values	233
8-7	Averaging a List of Values	234
8-8	Recursively Counting Elements in a List	235
8-9	Calculating the Log Base 10	236
8-10	Calculating Powers	236
8-11	Exponential Notation	237
8-12	Converting Between Radians and Degrees	237
8-13	Calculating the Area of a Circle	238
8-14	Elliptical Motion Behavior	238
8-15	Preventing Overflow Conditions While Calculating Factorials	240
8-16	Recursive Factorial Function	241
8-17	Integer Rounding	241
8-18	Integer Truncation	242
8-19	Float Rounding	242
8-20	Float Truncation	242
8-21	Temperature Conversion	243
8-22	Generating Random Numbers in Various Ranges	244
8-23	Simulating a Pair of Dice	245
8-24	Simulating a Coin Flip	245
8-25	One-Eyed Jacks Are Wild	246
8-26	Randomizing an Existing List	247
9-1	Basic Mouse Events	252
9-2	What's My Sprite Number?	256
9-3	Responding to Both Single- and Double-Clicks	262
9-4	Preventing a Double-Click from Executing the Single-Click Action	262
9-5	Preventing Rapid-Fire Clicks	262
9-6	Dragging a Sprite	270
9-7	Build a Better Mouse Trap	270
10-1	Accumulating and Counting Keystrokes	278
10-2	toring the State of Modifier Keys	282
10-3	Preventing the User from Aborting	285
10-4	Trapping the Quit Keys	285
10-5	Setting the Insertion Point	287
10-6	Setting the Highlight in a Field	288
10-7	Disallowing Characters	289
10-8	Allowing Only Specific Characters	289
10-9	Password Entry Field	290
10-10	Special Handling of Editing Keys	292
10-11	Trapping the Numeric Keypad Keys	293
10-12	Key Trap	296
10-13	Passing Key Events from MIAWs	298
10-14	Your Own KeyCode Tester	299
11-1	A Custom Timer	302
11-2	Delay Command versus Custom Wait Function	303
11-3	Waiting for Media	303
11-4	Time Unit Conversion Utilities	310
11-5	Converting Between Frames to HH:MM:SS	311
11-6	Score Duration and Arbitrary Conversion	312
11-7	Projector Expiration and Y2K	314
11-8	Timing Performance	315
11-9	Stop Watch Timer	317
11-10	Symbolic Version of Conversion Utility	317
12-1	A Ludicrously Simple Behavior	322
12-2	Writing Simple Scripts Via the Behavior Inspector	322
12-3	A simplified beeping Behavior	324
12-4	A Trivial Procedural Example	326
12-5	A Procedural Stopwatch	327
12-6	Creating a Child Object from a Parent Script	329
12-7	Instantiating and Using a Child Object	330
12-8	An Object-Oriented Stopwatch	330
12-9	Testing a Timer Object	331
12-10	Paradise Lost? Not as Lost as the Reader!	332
12-11	Child Object References	336
12-12	Reading Properties of Child Objects	337
12-13	The GetBehaviorDescription Method	340
12-14	The GetPropertyDescriptionList Method	341
12-15	Behaving Yourself in Paradise	344
12-16	The RunPropertyDialog Method	344
12-17	The ActorList	347
12-18	Getting Attached Behaviors	348
12-19	Adding Behaviors At Runtime	349
13-1	ShowXlib Output for Director for Macintosh	351
13-2	The Output from NetLingo's mMessageList()	352
13-3	Relief from mMessageList()	352
13-4	Deciphering FileIO mMessageList()	353
13-5	Using Instance-Level Methods	355
13-6	Listing Installed Lingo Scripting Xtras from Lingo	356
13-7	Checking Whether a Specific Lingo Scripting Xtra is Installed	357
13-8	Deciphering mDescribe	360
13-9	Using an XObject	361
13-10	Using an XFCN or XCMD	362
14-1	Viewing File Type and Creator Codes	370
14-2	Moving Down or Up One Folder	373
14-3	Ensuring a file path separator	373
14-4	Extracting the FileName from a Path	374
14-5	Extracting Files in Subfolders	375
14-6	MUI File Save Dialog	375
14-7	Writing to a File	381
14-8	Reading from a File	383
14-9	SetFilterMask	384
14-10	SetFinderInfo and GetFinderInfo	384
14-11	Printing an External Text File	390
15-1	Standard Multibutton MUI Alert Dialog	391
19-1	The Fixed Case of Symbols	522
19-2	Checking If a Symbol Exists	523
19-3	Checking If an Asset Xtra is Installed	524
A-1	ASCII Table Printout	530
A-2	Test for Alpha Character	530
A-3	Test for Alpha Digit	530
C-1	Character Sort Order Ranking	555
C-2	Character Sort Order Ranking Showing ASCII Values	556
C-3	Convert to Uppercase	556
C-4	Distinguishing Between Cases	557
C-5	Intercepting Spaces	560
C-6	Trimming and Deleting Spaces	560
D-1	Using LINGO.INI to Configure a Projector	566
E-1	Error Handling	584