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Feedback wanted: conditional GCode without indentation

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  • undefined
    tekkydave @dc42
    last edited by 8 Feb 2021, 17:28

    @dc42 curly braces for me every time. I don't see the point of adding extra keywords that just take up space.

    ~ tekkydave ~
    D-Bot: 300x300mm | Duet WiFi + Duex2 | 3 independent z motors | X,Y & Z linear rails | E3D Titan Aero + V6 | Precision Piezo z-probe
    FreeCAD, PrusaSlicer

    undefined 1 Reply Last reply 8 Feb 2021, 17:43 Reply Quote 0
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      tekkydave @fcwilt
      last edited by 8 Feb 2021, 17:35

      @fcwilt I once used a language called pl/9 that had a repeat...until. I miss it from every other language I've used since.

      ~ tekkydave ~
      D-Bot: 300x300mm | Duet WiFi + Duex2 | 3 independent z motors | X,Y & Z linear rails | E3D Titan Aero + V6 | Precision Piezo z-probe
      FreeCAD, PrusaSlicer

      undefined 1 Reply Last reply 8 Feb 2021, 17:41 Reply Quote 0
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        fcwilt @tekkydave
        last edited by 8 Feb 2021, 17:41

        @tekkydave said in Feedback wanted: conditional GCode without indentation:

        @fcwilt I once used a language called pl/9 that had a repeat...until. I miss it from every other language I've used since.

        I never heard of PL/9 - I used PL/1 for a bit - it's looping syntax was flexible and consistent.

        My programming language of choice is Delphi.

        Frederick

        Printers: a small Utilmaker style, a small CoreXY and a E3D MS/TC setup. Various hotends. Using Duet 3 hardware running 3.4.6

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          fcwilt @tekkydave
          last edited by 8 Feb 2021, 17:43

          @tekkydave said in Feedback wanted: conditional GCode without indentation:

          @dc42 curly braces for me every time. I don't see the point of adding extra keywords that just take up space.

          Keywords have a mnemonic value that isolated arbitrary symbols lack.

          Frederick

          Printers: a small Utilmaker style, a small CoreXY and a E3D MS/TC setup. Various hotends. Using Duet 3 hardware running 3.4.6

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • undefined
            garyd9 @dc42
            last edited by garyd9 2 Aug 2021, 17:44 8 Feb 2021, 17:43

            @dc42 said in Feedback wanted: conditional GCode without indentation:

            Does that make the reason for this proposal clearer?

            Yes, much clearer. Thank you.

            I'm not familiar with belt printers and how this might be used - which left (and still leaves) my understanding lacking.

            That being said, can the problem be addressed using macros? Can a print job's gcode use M28/M29 to create new files?

            ; ----- start gcode
            ;
            ; inital printer setup
            ;
            M28 job.gcode ; cause the actual gcode to be written to job.gcode
            ;
            ; ------- actual print gcode generated by slicer
            ;
            ; --------- end gcode
            M29 ; stop/save job.gcode
            ;
            ; -- here would be the loop for running the print job
            while (some_condition)
            ; belt movement
            M32 job.gcode

            <eof>

            (I have no idea if a gcode file can use M28/m29 to create another gcode file, but if it can...)

            "I'm not saying that you are wrong - I'm just trying to fit it into my real world simulated experience."

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              theruttmeister @dc42
              last edited by 8 Feb 2021, 17:45

              @dc42 said in Feedback wanted: conditional GCode without indentation:

              @garyd9 said in Feedback wanted: conditional GCode without indentation:

              @fcwilt said in Feedback wanted: conditional GCode without indentation:

              @garyd9 said in Feedback wanted: conditional GCode without indentation:

              Can you please give an example of a gcode sequence that would impractical with the current space delimiting blocks?

              The issue is gcode files as generated by a slicer - not the files you would create yourself on the duet.

              That doesn't answer the question. Without an example of the problem, it's difficult to give a reasonable opinion on a proposed solution.

              Suppose you generate a GCode file using a slicer. But you have a belt printer and you want to print it 10 times, with a belt movement between each iteration.

              Using existing slicers, there is no way to use the slicer start and end scripts to achieve this.

              You could achieve it by editing the GCode file, but then you would have to indent almost the whole GCode file so that it became the body of the while-loop.

              If we offer the option to delimit if- and while-commands explicitly, then you could insert one line near the start of the file (the 'while' line), and one near the end (the 'end' line). You might even be able to put the 'while' line in your slicer start script, and the 'end' line in the end script, so that you don't need to edit the file at all.

              Does that make the reason for this proposal clearer?

              That could be simplified down to a gcode command that executed a specific .gcode file multiple times:
              Mxxx thisprintjob.gcode S10
              For example.
              That has the advantage of not needing anything like the complexity of conditionals.

              I think the fact that it is a programming loop is making people think that the solution is to create the ability in g-code to code loops. Where as in fact for the described use case at least, its not really a loop, its just a way to not have the file be 10 times longer than it needs to be.

              At there other things that actually are conditional and not just 'do x, y number of times'?

              (in fact, all this could be done in DWC... which in some ways makes more sense).

              Isolate, substitute, verify.

              undefined 1 Reply Last reply 8 Feb 2021, 19:16 Reply Quote 0
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                zapta @fcwilt
                last edited by 8 Feb 2021, 17:51

                @fcwilt said in Feedback wanted: conditional GCode without indentation:

                '}' symbols are evil incarnate.

                The Duet's firmware is full of them, don't bring it into your home. šŸ˜‰

                https://github.com/Duet3D/RepRapFirmware/blob/dev/src/Movement/DriveMovement.cpp

                undefined 1 Reply Last reply 8 Feb 2021, 19:13 Reply Quote 0
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                  garethky
                  last edited by 8 Feb 2021, 18:11

                  1. end is fine
                  2. I would pick just 1 way to do it, even if that way breaks existing code. Now is the time to make breaking changes. I don't want to imagine a) what tricky things users will think up to fool themselves b) what implementation bugs will arise due to the complexity of having 2 ways to do it.
                  3. As a software engineer, this question makes my skin crawl. I really wouldn't do anything for whole files, just blocks. But if you really want to mix both styles, I would do this: require unintended blocks to have a begin and end keywords, on their own lines, to delimit the block. That way begin/end can be used with all of the existing block types without renaming them (the names are perfectly good as-is).
                  if foo == bar
                  begin
                  ; begin unruly slicer generated gcode
                  G10
                  G1 X50 Y50 F5000
                  ; and so on ...
                  end

                  This is basically a friendlier versions of parens{<block>}. You could also postfix the if statement with python's : to indicate an unintended block start but this is so subtle and easy to miss that I think it is visiting an evil on the intended audience.

                  Visual Basic has "OrElse" and "AndAlso", because they refused to re-define the meaning of "or" and "and". Don't be Visual Basic.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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                    fcwilt @zapta
                    last edited by 8 Feb 2021, 19:13

                    @zapta said in Feedback wanted: conditional GCode without indentation:

                    The Duet's firmware is full of them, don't bring it into your home. šŸ˜‰

                    That's why I perform a ritual "cleansing" of the boards before I use them in a printer.

                    Better safe than sorry. šŸ˜‰

                    Frederick

                    Printers: a small Utilmaker style, a small CoreXY and a E3D MS/TC setup. Various hotends. Using Duet 3 hardware running 3.4.6

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                      fcwilt @theruttmeister
                      last edited by 8 Feb 2021, 19:16

                      @theruttmeister said in Feedback wanted: conditional GCode without indentation:

                      That could be simplified down to a gcode command that executed a specific .gcode file multiple times:
                      Mxxx thisprintjob.gcode S10

                      That would still require editing the slicer generated file to separate out the pre-print/post-print code from the main body of the code.

                      With a While and End you add two lines to the file and your done.

                      Frederick

                      Printers: a small Utilmaker style, a small CoreXY and a E3D MS/TC setup. Various hotends. Using Duet 3 hardware running 3.4.6

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                      • undefined
                        BoA
                        last edited by BoA 2 Aug 2021, 20:21 8 Feb 2021, 19:27

                        Should the keywork be 'end', or something else?
                        I think I would use

                        if condition
                        then
                        if given condition true
                        execute all commands up to else statement
                        or to fi if there is no else statement
                        else
                        if given condition false
                        execute all commands up to fi
                        fi

                        and

                        while condition
                        do
                        command1
                        command2
                        command3
                        done

                        Should it be permitted to mix keywork-delimiting and indentation-delimiting in the same file? If so, what problems might arise, and what restrictions should be enforced?

                        IMO indentations should be allowed just to keep it more readable, but ignored in processing code

                        How should the user indicate to the firmware that a loop or conditional is to be delimited by a keyword instead of by indentation? One option is to have a new command keyword (e.g. 'noblockindent') that means that for the remainder of the file, keywork-delimiting will be used. Using that keyword when already inside a block would probably have to be banned. Another option is to use different variations of 'if' and 'while' (e.g. a different keyword or some extra character) to indicate keywork delimiting for that command.

                        I would drop indentations for indicating clode blocks

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • undefined
                          MJLew
                          last edited by 8 Feb 2021, 20:02

                          1. The coding language that I use most of the time (Livecode) uses "end repeat" to end a repeat loop, "end if" to end a conditional et cetera. It is very nice in that it does not depend on indents and it is entirely unambiguous. I commend it as a model to follow.

                          2. No. Do not allow mixtures. They will be confusing.

                          3. Ideally you would make the delimiting by keyword and do not support indentation. However, I'm guessing that indentation is already in use, and in that case your idea of something like 'noblockindent' would work rather like M82 and M83 (absolute and relative extruder). Perhaps it should have two keywords 'blockindent' and 'blockwords'.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
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                            MikeS @fcwilt
                            last edited by 8 Feb 2021, 20:22

                            @fcwilt +1 from me but at the moment {} brackets are used for putting variables from object model into gcode commands.

                            Anyway i think that more similiar the conditional code is to c++ and less to python is for me a big yes....i have no problem with this type of language but i hate having indentation to determine the loop/function start/end.

                            I would give a function its proper "ender" so for example "loop" for while loop and so on.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
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                              OwenD
                              last edited by 8 Feb 2021, 20:28

                              Having come from a Delphi programming background (based on pascal) I'd be inclined to lean towards a similar syntax
                              Pascal was designed to be easy to read/teach.
                              Blocks are typically surrounded by begin/end and use the keyword "do"
                              Indentation is not required but usually used for clarity.

                              while iterations < 10 do
                              begin
                              // do stuff
                              end

                              For if statements

                              if move.axes[0].homed do
                              begin
                              echo "axis homed"
                              end
                              else
                              begin
                              echo "axis is not homed"
                              end

                              line ends are usually terminated with a semi colon ; except in nested begin/end blocks as if if else (the outer block must have a ; and the inner must not) but I don't think that is necessary here.
                              Likewise the do keyword is purely for human readability.

                              I would not allow mixing of indentation and whatever block format is chosen.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                              • undefined
                                bot
                                last edited by 8 Feb 2021, 22:52

                                I don't see the need for a begin keyword. If is the keyword that starts the block.

                                Perhaps if a keyword is required at the beginning, we could borrow some LUA parlance and use THEN, so that the parser knows when the conditional is over.

                                *not actually a robot

                                undefined 1 Reply Last reply 9 Feb 2021, 00:44 Reply Quote 0
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                                  dbruce.ae05
                                  last edited by 8 Feb 2021, 23:13

                                  I’m going to break with the group. I like the Python style of programming and keeping the indentations. Python is widely used and when writing code on the SBC, most likely a raspberry pi, Python is the natural choice.

                                  undefined 1 Reply Last reply 9 Feb 2021, 00:41 Reply Quote 0
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                                    fcwilt @dbruce.ae05
                                    last edited by 9 Feb 2021, 00:41

                                    @dbruce-ae05 said in Feedback wanted: conditional GCode without indentation:

                                    I’m going to break with the group. I like the Python style of programming and keeping the indentations. Python is widely used and when writing code on the SBC, most likely a raspberry pi, Python is the natural choice.

                                    You're forgiven your errant ways. šŸ˜‰

                                    Frederick

                                    Printers: a small Utilmaker style, a small CoreXY and a E3D MS/TC setup. Various hotends. Using Duet 3 hardware running 3.4.6

                                    undefined 1 Reply Last reply 9 Feb 2021, 01:06 Reply Quote 0
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                                      fcwilt @bot
                                      last edited by 9 Feb 2021, 00:44

                                      @bot said in Feedback wanted: conditional GCode without indentation:

                                      I don't see the need for a begin keyword. If is the keyword that starts the block.

                                      Perhaps if a keyword is required at the beginning, we could borrow some LUA parlance and use THEN, so that the parser knows when the conditional is over.

                                      Well in Delphi if you only have one statement after the condition you don't need the begin/end pair. You use them when you have more than one statement.

                                      I always thought that NOT always requiring begin/end even for one statement was a mistake.

                                      Frederick

                                      Printers: a small Utilmaker style, a small CoreXY and a E3D MS/TC setup. Various hotends. Using Duet 3 hardware running 3.4.6

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                                      • undefined
                                        dbruce.ae05 @fcwilt
                                        last edited by 9 Feb 2021, 01:06

                                        @fcwilt šŸ™ƒ

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                                          lord binky @DaveA
                                          last edited by 9 Feb 2021, 16:44

                                          @DaveA As a C & C++ programmer from around 1976 I'd love to see the Kernighan and Ritchie style with { } syntax. I hate Python indention style.
                                          Just my opinion since you asked.

                                          What? But python style works great in editors like EMACS! Fancy IDE's highlighting { } groupings is for schmucks right? šŸ˜„

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