Am 06.12.25 um 07:06 schrieb Michael Marx (spintel) via Discuss:
I'm historically aware of the use of echo() output to do things like producing a Bill of Material.
And the Command-line output option '-o echo' to log echo statements to a file.
There is a suggestion to change the format (significant digits) of numbers output by echo(), and
probably str().
Just to outline my use-case: I'm using OpenSCAD in a project together
with LaTeX and MetaPost to generate 2D drawings and documentation.
OpenSCAD output is actually the least important, but - as we all know -
the visually most convincing one.
All three of them, LaTeX, MetaPost and OpenSCAD, being three different
languages, need to refer to the same data, im my use-case numbers only
for OpenSCAD & MetaPost and strings only for OpenSCAD & LaTeX. Since
OpenSCAD happens to be my testbed for new ideas, source parameter files
are actually .scad files. These files are simple and linear, but may
contain calculations of dependent parameters and are converted (to
MetaPost) code in a three-step process via pipe:
- For every assignment to a variable, insert an 'echo(var=var);'
statement (using sed).
- Run the file through openscad with '--export-format echo'.
- Tidy-up the output, e.g., elide 'ECHO:' prefix and append a semicolon
to all lines.
The resulting MetaPost file contains only simple assignments, no
arithmetics or function calls.
(Translation of OpenSCAD strings to LaTeX code is similar, but the
OpenSCAD source file contains a lot more string-fu as most or the LaTeX
macro generation is done on the OpenSCAD side.)
Will this cause significant issues to such use of the log output?
As long as the suggestion is not about reducing significant digits, I
hope not. But thank's for the heads-up! Something I'll watch out for.
Hm, while MetaPost can handle arbitrary precision values, people might
use other post-processing tools that get hick-up on unexpected precision
or range. So maybe make OpenSCAD's echo(var=var) output format subject
to user-preference? Opening the door to getting rid of that
|v<$!#§^Wexpendable ECHO: prefix ...
Regards,
frechefuchs
Am 06.12.25 um 07:06 schrieb Michael Marx (spintel) via Discuss:
> I'm historically aware of the use of echo() output to do things like producing a Bill of Material.
> And the Command-line output option '-o echo' to log echo statements to a file.
>
> There is a suggestion to change the format (significant digits) of numbers output by echo(), and
> probably str().
Just to outline my use-case: I'm using OpenSCAD in a project together
with LaTeX and MetaPost to generate 2D drawings and documentation.
OpenSCAD output is actually the least important, but - as we all know -
the visually most convincing one.
All three of them, LaTeX, MetaPost and OpenSCAD, being three different
languages, need to refer to the same data, im my use-case numbers only
for OpenSCAD & MetaPost and strings only for OpenSCAD & LaTeX. Since
OpenSCAD happens to be my testbed for new ideas, source parameter files
are actually .scad files. These files are simple and linear, but may
contain calculations of dependent parameters and are converted (to
MetaPost) code in a three-step process via pipe:
1. For every assignment to a variable, insert an 'echo(var=var);'
statement (using sed).
2. Run the file through openscad with '--export-format echo'.
3. Tidy-up the output, e.g., elide 'ECHO:' prefix and append a semicolon
to all lines.
The resulting MetaPost file contains only simple assignments, no
arithmetics or function calls.
(Translation of OpenSCAD strings to LaTeX code is similar, but the
OpenSCAD source file contains a lot more string-fu as most or the LaTeX
macro generation is done on the OpenSCAD side.)
> Will this cause significant issues to such use of the log output?
As long as the suggestion is not about _reducing_ significant digits, I
hope not. But thank's for the heads-up! Something I'll watch out for.
Hm, while MetaPost can handle arbitrary precision values, people might
use other post-processing tools that get hick-up on unexpected precision
or range. So maybe make OpenSCAD's echo(var=var) output format subject
to user-preference? Opening the door to getting rid of that
|v<$!#§^Wexpendable ECHO: prefix ...
Regards,
frechefuchs
