Is Date + Integer still supported on CS16?

Hi all,

We've been using the following code from Livelink 971 to CS105, all worked fine. On CS16, we got a trace file complaining data type not match.

-------------------

                   if ( now > result[ 1 ].SubWorkTask_DateDue_Max + 3600 )
                       occurred = True
                   end

-----------------

Did OScript on CS16 drop support for Date + Integer calculation?

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Actually the number 3600 is stored as "G3600", if I place a breakpoint with eclipse then change its value to 3600, it worked. We had no issue with G3600 in CS10 / 105, is there anything changed?

I just realized G3600 is real. I created the following code, it works on CS10 / CS105, fails on CS16,

-----------------

dynamic x
real r = 10

x = r * 360

date d = Date.now()

echo( d + x )

----------------

So it looks like CS16 doesn't allow a dynamic variable but actually real any more... can anyone confirm?

David Templeton

Kevin

Can you provide screen shot of the variable panel in the debug view while on that line including what the SubWorkTask_DateDue_Max looks like please. I just created this and it run fine on both 10.2015-12 and latest 16. There should be little difference

Date now =Date.Now()

Date SubWorkTask_DateDue_Max = now - 3700

Boolean occurred = FALSE

if ( now > SubWorkTask_DateDue_Max + 3600 )

occurred = TRUE

end

echo( now )

echo( SubWorkTask_DateDue_Max )

echo ( occurred )

David

From: eLink Entry: Content Server Development Forum [mailto:development@elinkkc.opentext.com]
Sent: Friday, May 13, 2016 4:12 PM
To: eLink Recipient
Subject: Is Date + Integer still supported on CS16?

Is Date + Integer still supported on CS16?

Posted by Lin, Kevin On 05/13/2016 04:06 PM

Hi all,

We've been using the following code from Livelink 971 to CS105, all worked fine. On CS16, we got a trace file complaining data type not match.

-------------------

                   if ( now > result[ 1 ].SubWorkTask_DateDue_Max + 3600 )
                       occurred = True
                   end

-----------------

Did OScript on CS16 drop support for Date + Integer calculation?

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Content Server:	Knowledge Center

Tammy_Jakubowski

Here's some more data from Kevin.

The following code failed on CS16, as a result all date calculation for workflow events failed on CS16:

---------------

dynamic x

real r = 10

x = r * 360

date d = Date.now()

echo( d + x )

-------------------

I guess Open Text wanted to make OScript a strong-typed language ( This was in response to my question as to why he thought OT might change this). When x is defined as dynamic and has a real value, "d + x" worked before because there was an implicit type conversion, now it's removed.

Regards,

Tammy Jakubowski

tamjak@globalcents.com

Director of Quality Management

cell: 847-452-2059

www.globalcents.com

new signatege

From: eLink Entry: Content Server Development Forum [mailto:development@elinkkc.opentext.com]
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2016 9:55 AM
To: eLink Recipient <devnull@elinkkc.opentext.com>
Subject: RE Is Date + Integer still supported on CS16?

RE Is Date + Integer still supported on CS16?

Posted by Templeton, David On 05/16/2016 10:54 AM

Kevin

Can you provide screen shot of the variable panel in the debug view while on that line including what the SubWorkTask_DateDue_Max looks like please. I just created this and it run fine on both 10.2015-12 and latest 16. There should be little difference

Date now =Date.Now()

Date SubWorkTask_DateDue_Max = now - 3700

Boolean occurred = FALSE

if ( now > SubWorkTask_DateDue_Max + 3600 )

occurred = TRUE

end

echo( now )

echo( SubWorkTask_DateDue_Max )

echo ( occurred )

David

From: eLink Entry: Content Server Development Forum [mailto:development@elinkkc.opentext.com]
Sent: Friday, May 13, 2016 4:12 PM
To: eLink Recipient
Subject: Is Date + Integer still supported on CS16?

Is Date + Integer still supported on CS16?

Posted by Lin, Kevin On 05/13/2016 04:06 PM

Hi all,

We've been using the following code from Livelink 971 to CS105, all worked fine. On CS16, we got a trace file complaining data type not match.

-------------------

                   if ( now > result[ 1 ].SubWorkTask_DateDue_Max + 3600 )
                       occurred = True
                   end

-----------------

Did OScript on CS16 drop support for Date + Integer calculation?

[To post a comment, use the normal reply function]
Forum:	Content Server Development Forum
Content Server:	Knowledge Center

[To post a comment, use the normal reply function]
Topic:	Is Date + Integer still supported on CS16?
Forum:	Content Server Development Forum
Content Server:	Knowledge Center

David Templeton

Tammy,

Did some further testing and here is the behavior, just to go through the details. If the type of the variable is a date and the offset is an integer all good. I think we can all agree here. For example:

Date SubWorkTask_DateDue_Max = now

if ( now > SubWorkTask_DateDue_Max + 3600 )

Now, if the offset being achieved is a real, as expressed in the original postings. Like this example:

Date SubWorkTask_DateDue_Max = now

Real offset = 3600

if ( now >SubWorkTask_DateDue_Max + offset )

echo("tripped #2 TRUE" )

else

echo("tripped #2 FALSE" )

end

This will result in a compile error on 16 and at least 10.x since we can do compile time type checking. I would expect this since what does it mean to add a real number to the date? J

The datatypes of these operands do not work with this operator.

Now to look at the example posted

dynamic x

real r = 10

x = r * 360

date d =Date.now()

echo( d + x )

This results in an “Mixed Mode” error at runtime in 16. Mainly due to the variable at compile time not being able to be checked against the date type. In 10.x, this is an implicit conversion. BUT this then hides a subtle error, what does it mean to have a partial real number being added to the date. I would characterize it as being a non-deterministic outcome really. Now, technically probably not but logically what would you expect, to floor or round the decimal?

Now, in the original posting, it was based on a structure, which again at compile time would be a dynamic and therefore would pass the compile check and only return a runtime error in 16.

Assoc foo

//

// set the structure

//

foo.SubWorkTask_DateDue_Max = now

// The datatypes of these operands do not work with this operator.

if ( now > foo.SubWorkTask_DateDue_Max + offset )

echo("tripped #2 TRUE" )

else

echo("tripped #2 FALSE" )

end

In the end, the 16 runtime is doing the correct thing and being consistent andpreventing a potential and difficult bug. The recommendation would be set the offset value to integer in the code.

David

Tammy_Jakubowski

Thanks David. We came to the same conclusions. We'll replace our code accordingly.

Any chance there is a comprehensive list of changes done at this level that we could review? :-)

Tammy

David Templeton

Tammy,

I can see but we are talking about 3-4 years of changesJ

David

Our issue is that we store a real value plus an identifier and use that to determine a number of seconds. As an example, we may store the real value 1.5 and an identifier of days. The code will take the 1.5 and multiply it by the correct value to determine the number of seconds in 1.5 days. That value is comes out to around 86,400 seconds. Because we started with a real value stored in a Dynamic variable, this value remains a real. In pre CS 16, adding that variable to a date would work. With CS 16, it causes a runtimem error.

The variable is a Dynamic because it is part of a subsystem where any type of value can be stored by the object registering with the subsystem. Our issue is that this code has worked from LL 9.5.0 - CS 10.5, but no longer works in CS 16. There is also no builtin to return an integer from a real value, or we would have used that. As it is now, we have to add additional variables of a static type to do the dynamic cast. I'm assuming the previous compiler did a dynamic cast at runtime of the real to an integer before doing the addition.

The big question is, how many other similar code instances are going to have problems with the new compiler? Is any method that is passed a Dynamic value going to puke because it no longer does the implicit cast?

In my previous post I meant to say multiply the Real value for days by 86400 to get the correct number of seconds and 3600 for hours. If the original value is a real, you end up with a real after the operation.

David Templeton

Jeff

You said

Because we started with a real value stored in a Dynamic variable, this value remains a real. In pre CS 16, adding that variable to a date would work. With CS 16, it causes a runtime error.

That is not the case, since it was dealing with dynamics in the structure the compiler could not catch it. It has always been an error, relying on the side-effect of the runtime is still incorrect. That is what the runtime catch is doing. It is now adhering to the behavior we publish for consistent behavior.

Adding an Integer to a Date returns a new Date that many seconds forwards, while subtracting an Integer returns a new Date that many seconds back. In both cases, the Integer must be the right operand and the Date the left. One Date can also be subtracted from another to give the number of intervening seconds.

https://knowledge.opentext.com/knowledge/llisapi.dll/fetch/2001/15080935/-15106263/15106294/15106295/16376487/62426572/62359672/oscript/behaviour.html

Now, as you said currently there probably needs to be an explicit integer declaration needed BUT going forward maybe we should consider supporting explicit casts?

Just checked, Java for instance, will not allow the dynamic behavior of the implicit casting. You need to provide the explicit casts. And javascript, well. Wild West there…..

David

Actually nothing to add about this but stuff I learned and ran into:)

Hi Jeff,David and all oScripters who may be maintaining code from old environments.Here is some stuff I ran into and David helped me get it right.

Internally the calls like $lliapi.CacheUtil.Load() is now sourcing its entire values from a single row.In old systems the data was spread into many rows.Nothing that developers need to worry about but its transparent and a red herring to what I am talking about.
I inherited a large amount of code that would insert objects like DAPNODE,prgCtx etc into cache objects and that still works in the 10.5 systems,but the reverse call like the above would break at the first occurrence of any such object like DAPINODE,PrgCtx etc.I have not personally checked if code in CS16 works like 971 but I thought why store a DAPINODE because one can get it back using the id anytime.
In my case I rewrote the code and started finding the nodes I needed based on the dataid.David Templeton helped me tremendously and showed me the fallacies of the old implementation

Perhaps active oScripters can share the nuances of the language like the Date+ stuff being talked about and we could have a list of what code should look like going forward.Thanks for the explanations as well.They help many of us.

David Templeton

Appu

Like best practices?

David

PS: Who is going to Nashville?

Tammy_Jakubowski

I've not heard many customers say they are going, even the ones in Tennessee. My sample size is not representative, of couse.

Back to the issue.... any and all information, even if it's not available until release time, is helpful, David. Thank you, as always, for your knowledge and assistance.

Quoted David Templeton on 05/17/2016 01:43 PM:

Appu

Like best practices? Yes Siree

David

PS: Who is going to Nashville? Not me said the

David Templeton

I wanted to follow-up on this, we have an issue for this now, CURE-728. While the error being generated is now syntactically correct and consistent, I am of the opinion that it is semantically incorrect. The interface should handle the following example transparently:

	Real   numDays = 1.5	Integer  numSecsPerDay = 86400	Date   now = Date.Now()	Date  nextCheckDate 	nextCheckDate = now + ( numDays * numSecsPerDay )

The contract needs to be clear, in this implementation the real-type value would be cast to an integer and then used. There is no delivery date for this yet.

As always opinions welcome

Regards

David

Tammy_Jakubowski

No issues with this approach. We'll still have to change our code so that we work with this first version of CS 16.

Ferdinand Prantl

Does it mean, that you would allow Real in the expressions with Date? At the beginning of the thread it seemed, that you would not.

Then I would suggest supporting both Integer and Real types officially in expressions like these:

Date + Integer
Date + Real

But that should be valid in both static compiler checks and during the runtime with dynamic values. It would be easier for the developer to use. The "+" operator would truncate the second operand, if it were Real. Date.DateInteger and Time.TimeInteger could accept Integer or Real too to make the API consistent with the language.

If you wanted to cast only the arithmetic expressions in your example to Integer during the runtime, and make the compile fail, if a declared Real would be used, like at the beginning of this thread, I would make even the arithmetic expressions fail, unless the developer does not cast it or perform some other operation explicitly to get Integer. If Real should fail, then everywhere. But I would prefer the former.

If you didn't want to break existing code, you could use the trick from JavaScript and Perl: the strict mode. Unless some magic expression like 'use strict' is found in the enclosing script or function, you would run in the "legacy mode", otherwise you would run in the clean and preferred mode.

For example, from JavaScript: JavaScript has no binary "+" operator like OScript for Date; they have methods to modify the Date instance instead. These methods coerce the input value to Integer by parseInt, which means truncating.

No issues with this approach. We'll still have to change our code so that we work with this first version of CS 16.

Agreed. In your case it doesn't matter what happens since you need your solution to work on all possible installations.

For this reason I often write my own abstraction layer to OScript and the CS APIs to better control the preconditions of an operation. For this example I would write a function:

function Date AddSecondsToDate(Date d, Dynamic s, Integer defaultSeconds=0)    return d + .toInteger(s, defaultSeconds)end

The toInteger() function accepts an Integer, Real, Long, or String, and defaults to defaultSeconds if the value can't be cast. This is far easier than having to check on each date+number operation that number is actually an Integer.

We just took the value of the Dynamic variable and stored it in an Integer variable. The cast was done automatically. It means we need to declare an extra variable, but still not much additional code.

Ferdinand Prantl

I haven't seen the conclusion yet, that this wouldn't be fixed by a hotfix to keep the compatibility. You might've given up too early ;-)

But it's probably easier for you to update your code and don't look back.

One of the first rules of good programming I was taught was: Don’t give riddles to the compiler.

The same applies for the person that need to support your code afterwards.

Hans

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Subject: RE RE RE RE Is Date + Integer still supported on CS16? 2

RE RE RE RE Is Date + Integer still supported on CS16? 2

Posted by Templeton, David On 05/18/2016 01:33 PM

I wanted to follow-up on this, we have an issue for this now, CURE-728. While the error being generated is now syntactically correct and consistent, I am of the opinion that it is semantically incorrect. The interface should handle the following example transparently:

        Real   numDays = 1.5

        Integer  numSecsPerDay = 86400

        Date   now = Date.Now()

        Date  nextCheckDate

        nextCheckDate = now + ( numDays * numSecsPerDay )

The contract needs to be clear, in this implementation the real-type value would be cast to an integer and then used. There is no delivery date for this yet.

As always opinions welcome

Regards

David

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Topic:	Is Date + Integer still supported on CS16?
Forum:	Content Server Development Forum
Content Server:	Knowledge Center

David Templeton

For sure, or at least be deterministic and document the behaviorJ

David