[ET Trac] [Einstein Toolkit] #1595: Is *) allowed as upper boundary for a parameter range?

[Einstein Toolkit]

#1595: Is *) allowed as upper boundary for a parameter range?
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------
  Reporter:  eschnett  |       Owner:  sbrandt            
      Type:  defect    |      Status:  assigned           
  Priority:  minor     |   Milestone:  ET_2015_05         
 Component:  Cactus    |     Version:  development version
Resolution:            |    Keywords:  postrelease        
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------

Comment (by rhaas):

 > Quoted strings are widely used in the ET. Even making it a warning to
 use them will generate a ton of > output.
 I am not worried about quoted ''strings'' (in fact we advertise using
 quotes for them) I am worried about surrounding the ranges (which are a
 set of numbers) by quotes and we forbid surrounding numbers by quotes for
 parameter values, ie:
 {{{
 Cactus::cctk_final_time = "10.0"
 }}}
 is invalid and produces
 {{{
 WARNING level 0 from host t1650-403463.aei.mpg.de process 0
   while executing schedule bin (none), routine (no thorn)::(no routine)
   in thorn Cactus, file tov.par:66:
   -> Invalid assignment: Attempting to set a variable of type REAL with
 (STRING)"10.0"
 }}}

 > I wasn't introducing ":", that was already supported and used. See, for
 example, ADMMass, CartGrid3D, > etc.
 Oh joy. Those entries are not my favorite parameter declarations :-). We
 will have to continue to support it (and the usage is actually backed up
 by the documentation it seems).

 > Good point about the "::". That has to be avoided. However, it seems it
 was caught earlier on. The
 > match never sees it.
 Well I would suspect that the range of type:
 {{{
 1::2 "blah"
 }}}
 gets split into a range of '1' and a description of '2 "blah"'. Eg setting
 {{{
 REAL xmin "Coordinate minimum in x-direction"
 {
   :: :: "Anything"
 } -1.0
 }}}
 gives
 {{{
 CST error 1:
   -> Description of range for parameter xmin has misplaced quotes ( ::
 "Anything") in param.ccl for thorn CartGrid3D
 }}}

 > The regex doesn't need to handle a single star or number, because that's
 also handled by code prior to > this line.
 ok, just wanted to make sure.

 > I think we can make this an error instead of a warning. The ET passes
 with the above expression.
 It always did (or at least has done so since we introduced the warning),
 Ian's concern seems to be for third party thorns.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://trac.einsteintoolkit.org/ticket/1595#comment:19>
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