EFS Parsing Surprise

[mebstyne]

I've been having some challenges with EFS / eSignal. In short, I'm a little concerned about the quality/maturity of the technology. I'd LOVE it too work flawlessly. I really feel it has incredible potential.

Perhaps I'm missing something; but, I was very surprised when neither the syntax checker, nor the advanced chart error caught the following syntax error when parsing an if statement:

if (20 > 10 (10 != 3) ) {
debugPrint("error here\n");
}

/*
// SYNTACTICALLY CORRECT EXAMPLE
if (20 > 10 && (10 != 3) ) {
debugPrint("expected\n");
}
*/

This is a simplified version of something that I found nestled in a more complex strategy that was ultimately skewing my numbers.

Can any one else confirm this issue? What is the proper channel for feeding bugs/issues back to the development team? Anyone know how I can learn more about the product's release schedule... etc.

Attached is a simple EFS file to test the above issue with...

Thanks,

M

[DionLoy]

Hm, interesting. We are using the JavaScript engine developed by Netscape (now maintained by the Mozilla Organization).

I'll check over this, and perhaps submit this to them to have a look at as well.

Thanks!

[DionLoy]

Okay. More info. By ECMA Javascript standards, this type of error is only a run-time error, and not compile time. That's why the syntax checker did not catch it.

Now, the reason why the Advanced Chart did not catch it at run-time is because of the nature of the error. The JavaScript engine parses this out and attempts to treat the first 10(....) as a function. The error is then a function not found.

However, in EFS we disable function not found errors due to the number of optional functions that users can define in EFS (ie, mouseUp/down, broker callbacks, button callbacks, URL clicks, etc...). I'll look into what we can do to improve things in this area.

The next version out is 7.9 and contains a number of EFS features (we're calling it EFS2) that make life much easier for multiple time frame analysis, reuse of code and simplified drawText/Shape functions. It is the first stage of a number of enhancements to fall under the EFS2 banner. A date has not yet been announced for this version, but it is currently undergoing alpha testing with some EFS2 programmers.