constant(
constant(
FORMULA
)

The constant( function converts an expression into a constant value (that can be plugged into a new formula).

Parameters

This function has one parameter:

formula – is the formula you want to convert into a constant.

Description

The constant( function converts an expression into a constant value. It determines the type of value generated by the expression, then adds quoting as necessary to make a valid constant that can be used to assemble a formula.

Suppose a program initialized two variables a and b like this:

    let a = 1
    let b = "hello"

Then various incancations of the constant( function will produce these results.

    constant(a) ☞ 1
    constant(b) ☞ "hello"
    constant(b+a) ☞ "hello1"
    constant(c) ☞ error("Field or Variable [c] does not exist.")

Essentially the constant( function provides a way to “freeze” the current value of a variable, so that it could be used later. In fact, the constant( function is used internally by the convertvariablestoconstants statement for just this purpose.

See Also

- constantvalue( -- converts a field or variable into an equivalent constant value.
- datatype( -- determines what kind of data is in a field or variable: text, number, etc.
- expressiontype( -- determines what kind of data is generated by an expression: text, number, etc.
- info("datatype") -- returns the data type of the current field.

History

Version | Status | Notes
10.2 | New | New in this version.