Snap has metaprogramming, and you can analyze scripts, even creating your own codification library. It's all thanks to the (split [] by [blocks]) block.
Well, there is a problem, you cannot get the number of slots in a variadic input. This is a big issue because you cannot recreate the block, or add something to a variadic input, all because there's no way to find where variadic inputs start and end.
This is the main reason why I've never really made my own blocks to text to blocks library, all because it's impossible to get the number of slots in a variadic input.
Just today I was thinking of how it could be possible, but then I remembered codification actually has that ability. I decided to use that to create this block.
This block reports the split blocks with every single input, but variadic inputs are much better.
The reason why the number of slots is in the first item of the list for a variadic input, it's because this is the format the snap uses to be able to create blocks with a custom number of slots in a variadic input. Why the primitive (split [] by [blocks]) doesn't report this in the first place, is beyond me.
This being the same format that snap uses to create blocks, it allows you to just put it into a join block, and get the original block back.
The block uses (split [] by [blocks]), I'm just using codification to get the number of slots in a variadic input (that's the whole point of this block). And yes, I do set the codification of the block for each variadic input (the user doesn't have to do anything).
I grab the slot of the block, so I can know if a slot is a variadic input. I loop through each slot, if it's a variadic input, I set the block codification to <#1> (the number is replaced by the input number). If I get the codification of the block, I only get
,
Where each space is an input (no matter what was in it), and a comma to split by it. If the code is blank, then there's 0 inputs.
I do use the (split [] by [blocks]) to get the input values, but I transform that list to get the result.
Ok, I know none of that made sense, it's late, so here's the code.
Woah! this is exactly what I thought the primitive split by blocks would do, and it works perfectly with the custom # of inputs! Can I use this for my Snapblocks converter (with credit)?
It's not a restriction, it's a suggestion that no one knew until jens said that (seriously, I don't think I've ever seen it mentioned before, and given that bh was also surprised, that reinforces this claim).
Plus, if we have the ability to put multiple variadic inputs in a block, you shouldn't expect people to only use one, expect people to use 10 in a single block, mixed with regular non-variadic inputs.
Yeah, that is the big problem with my solution. I did have an idea to save the current mapping for the block, then restore it after, but I ran into the problem where I can't get the mapping (or at least, no clever solutions popped into my head until now).
Of course if you know what code mapping the block changes, then you can reset it after the block runs.
Oh, and if you guys need it, here's everything that the block sets.
Oh I see, you dynamically codify each block as it comes up! That's very clever. I was imagining that you had to manually codify all the blocks in the project ahead of time, the way you do if you're using codification as in the Examples codification project.
Oh yeah, oops. I had accidentally put the item variable in the first slot before, and I looked at the first slot. I guess when I moved the item variable to the correct slot, I didn't check the list.
edit: I just updated the project (and script pics in the first post) with this fix.
I KNOW RIGHT!!! It's supported by the join block, so why not also report it?
Although I was able to fix this easily, because I noticed that the value was nothing when there were no slots, but it was replaced with a block if it's an input list (still with 0 slots).
I updated the block to make sure to handle the case where a code header was set. Apparently since setting the code header to nothing doesn't reset the code header (why?), I was able to just grab the last line in the code (which, thankfully, will always be what I need to get the variadic inputs).
