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

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Parameters

This function has one parameter:

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

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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.

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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.

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History

Version	Status	Notes
10.2	New	New in this version.