Charles Dye
Super Moderator
- May
- 4,969
- 128
Staff member
It's a common task to check that a numeric value falls within a certain range. It would simplify batch files if TCC had native range-check operators for use in IF, IFF, @IF (and perhaps even SWITCH/CASE?) I'm thinking something like WITHIN min TO max for an inclusive range test, and BETWEEN min AND max for an exclusive test. So, for example,
IF expr WITHIN min TO max ECHO YES
would work much like
IF expr GE min .AND. expr LE max ECHO YES
and
IF expr BETWEEN min AND max ECHO YES
would work much like
IF expr GT min .AND. expr LT max ECHO YES
but with three differences. First, TCC would require expr, min, and max all to be numeric, and give an error if any value is non-numeric. Second, TCC would check that min <= max (WITHIN) or min < max (BETWEEN), and issue an error otherwise. Finally, expr would be evaluated only once.
I chose TO and AND because they seem intuitive to me in context. In practice, I suppose the parser might accept either TO or AND between values in either test. Other types of range tests might also be useful: ATLEAST / BUTNOT for min <= expr < max (tax brackets?), or ABOVE / UPTO for min < expr <= max....
IF expr WITHIN min TO max ECHO YES
would work much like
IF expr GE min .AND. expr LE max ECHO YES
and
IF expr BETWEEN min AND max ECHO YES
would work much like
IF expr GT min .AND. expr LT max ECHO YES
but with three differences. First, TCC would require expr, min, and max all to be numeric, and give an error if any value is non-numeric. Second, TCC would check that min <= max (WITHIN) or min < max (BETWEEN), and issue an error otherwise. Finally, expr would be evaluated only once.
I chose TO and AND because they seem intuitive to me in context. In practice, I suppose the parser might accept either TO or AND between values in either test. Other types of range tests might also be useful: ATLEAST / BUTNOT for min <= expr < max (tax brackets?), or ABOVE / UPTO for min < expr <= max....
