Printing

Controlling the Number of Slots Printed

If you have a frame containing many slots (or an array containing many elements), printing can take a long time. The Inspector has a threshold on the number of slots it will print. This threshold is found in the printLength global variable.

The default for printLength is 16. At most 16 slots from a frame or array are printed, with an ellipsis (...) to show that there are further slots.

Here's an example of an array with 25 elements:

x := [];
for i := 1 to 25 do
   AddArraySlot(x, i);
x;
and here is what the Inspector shows you:

#440F0F9  [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, ...]
Here's an example of a frame with 25 slots:

x := {s1: 1, s2: 2, s3: 3, s4: 4, s5: 5, s6: 6,
s7: 7, s8: 8, s9: 9, s10: 10, s11: 11, s12: 12, 
s13: 13, s14: 14, s15: 15, s16: 16, s17: 17, 
s18: 18, s19: 19, s20: 20, s21: 21, s22: 22, 
s23: 23, s24: 24, s25: 25}
and that frame viewed in the Inspector:

#4411469  {s5: 5, s13: 13, s22: 22, s18: 18, s2: 2, s10: 10, s7: 7, s15: 15, s24: 24, s4: 4, s12: 12, s21: 21, s9: 9, s17: 17, s1: 1, s6: 6, ...}
If you are looking at a frame in the Inspector and don't see a slot you think is there, always look to see whether there is an ellipsis at the end of the frame. This signifies that more slots are in the frame. To see the remaining slots, increase the printLength variable and reevaluate the frame.


An online version of Programming for the Newton using Macintosh, 2nd ed. ©1996, 1994, Julie McKeehan and Neil Rhodes.

Last modified: 1 DEC 1996