Restricted Words in SenseTalk
Care has been taken to ensure that the number of restricted words is as small as possible, to give you the maximum freedom to use names that are meaningful in your scripts. In order for the SenseTalk engine to properly understand your script, there are some words whose use must be confined to their special meaning only. Attempting to use one of these restricted words in a way that is not allowed results in a syntax error.
Restricted Command and Function Names
The following words cannot be used as command or function names:
catch constant do else end exit |
function getProp global if local next |
on pass properties repeat return send |
setProp the then to try universal |
Restricted Variable Names
The following words cannot be used as variable (container) names:
down else empty end |
false field fld global |
if repeat return target |
then true universal up |
Predefined Variables
A number of other words have predefined values, and should generally be used as variables only in situations where their standard meanings are not required. To avoid confusion, it is best to avoid using these words as variable names, but their use is not prohibited, and in some cases it might be useful to store different values in them. Predefined variables are described in detail in Values. Here are some that should probably be avoided as variable names:
- Alternative boolean values: yes, no, on, off
- Special characters: colon, comma, cr, creturn, lf, linefeed, crlf, formfeed, newline, quote, space, tab, slash, backslash, null
- Numbers by name: pi, zero, one, two, three, . . .
- The current date and time: today, now, date, time
In addition, the host application and any loaded external modules might define other predefined variables.
Unquoted Literals
All other words that are allowed as variable names (i.e., not in the restricted list given above, or having a predefined special value) evaluate to their name until something else is stored in them. In other words, they can be used as unquoted literals. As soon as such a name is used as a variable, its value is treated as empty. Unquoted literals are always capitalized according to their first use in the handler. Subsequent uses of the same name (varying only by case) in the same handler are treated the same as the first occurrence (as illustrated by the first 3 lines of the examples below).
Examples:
put BIG -- "BIG"
put little -- "little"
put big && LITTLE -- "BIG little"
set the strictVariables to true -- prevent use of unquoted literals
put big -- this will throw an exception