baseConvert() & 32-bit ops

[Dar Scott]

On Saturday, June 21, 2003, at 10:11 PM, Mark Brownell wrote:

> This is fast and easy. I've never seen a function like this where the 
> parameter seemed  empty and it worked that way.

Yes, normally we think of commands as the operations _on_ variables.  
Yet, there are a few functions with side effects, such as  matchText(). 
  You can build your own commands and functions that work this way by 
using reference parameters (see @ in the Transcript Dictionary).  For 
example, you can code a swap command as a handler with two reference 
parameters.

> I like the way it returns 1 for error testing.

This is the number of variables converted.  You are using a trivial 
case of only trying to convert one.  Success is typically when the 
number attempted is the number converted.  In this case, 1.


>   put 1 into i
>   repeat while i <= 32
...
>     put i + 4 into i
>   end repeat

 From the TD, it looks like this should work, too:

repeat with i = 1 to 29 step 4  -- last halfBlock is of 'char 29 to 32'
...
end repeat


I'm glad this is working well.

Dar Scott