[Scilab-users] Question on constant variables

[Federico Miyara]

Dear all,

What is the reason why %pi, %e, %i, %f, %t are considered variables (see 
help percent) when they are really constants?

If %pi were a variable with the only detail that it has a preassigned 
value (while a bit dangerous, it could have been a possibility), then 
this would be possible:

--> %pi = 2

However, one gets the following warning:

Redefining permanent variable.

This is misleading since one would think that the value has been indeed 
changed, but entering

--> %pi

produces

  %pi  =

    3.1415927

That's pi, not 2!

So it would be better an error message such as

Attempt to redefine permanent variable not allowed.

Now, a similar attempt such as

--> %f = 2

yields a completely different message:

Error: syntax error, unexpected =, expecting end of file

And, of course, the result of invoking %f keeps being F.

Regards,

Federico Miyara


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.scilab.org/pipermail/users/attachments/20191127/60b92313/attachment.htm>