vargetl#

Purpose#

Accesses a local variable whose name is given as a string argument.

Format#

y = vargetl(s)#

Parameters:: s (string) – the name of the local symbol you wish to access
Returns:: y (any) – contents of the variable whose name is in s.

Examples#

proc rndNormEx( r, c, loc, std, ptVar);
    local rnd1, rnd2, rnd3;

    // Create random normal numbers with mean 0 and standard
    // deviation 1
    rnd1 = rndn(r, c);

    // Change the mean to 'loc'
    rnd2 = rnd1 + loc;

    // Change the standard deviation to 'std'
    rnd3 = std * rnd2;

    // Set the contents of tmp to be equal to the contents of
    // the local variable with the same name as the string
    // passed in as 'ptVar'
    tmp = vargetl(ptVar);

   print ptVar " is equal to: " tmp;

   retp(rnd3);
endp;

// Set the rng seed for repeatable results
rndseed 54223423;

// Passing in the final variable as the string rnd1, will
// cause the proc rndNormEx to print the contents of rnd1
r = rndNormEx( 2, 2, 0, 3, "rnd1");

The code above will produce the following output:

rnd1 is equal to:
 0.5240627925408163  1.4904799236486497
-1.1716182730350617 -0.0519353312479753

Remarks#

This function searches the local symbol list for the symbol whose name is in s and returns the contents of the variable if it exists. If the symbol does not exist, the function will terminate with an Undefined symbol error message.