Discussion

You can use this to inspect object expressions (or portions thereof) to see what values are being returned within them. This can be handy when debugging a complex expression that isn’t returning the result you expect.

This Mockingbird function accepts one parameter, the expression to evaluate.

Expression usage

Assume the variable $cart is an array containing five items:

You have ^log($cart).count items in your cart.

The expression “$cart” would be logged to the console, along with the result of calling the description method on underlying the NSArray. The array would then be returned by the function.

The expression as a whole would yield the string “You have 5 items in your cart.”

Discussion

You can use this to inspect boolean expressions (or portions thereof) to see what values are being returned within them. This can be handy when debugging a complex expression that isn’t returning the result you expect.

This Mockingbird function accepts one parameter, the expression to evaluate.

Expression usage

Assume the variable $foo contains the string “cromulent”:

^test($foo.length -GT 5)

The expression “$foo.length -GT 5” would be logged to the console, along with the boolean result, which is YES. The result YES would then be returned by the function.

Discussion

This Mockingbird function accepts one parameter, the expression to evaluate.

Expression usage

Assume the variable $Window contains a reference to the application’s UIWindow:

^dump($Window)

The expression above might result in a value such as:

<UIWindow: 0x7f811c3036e0; frame = (0 0; 375 667); layer = <UIWindowLayer: 0x7f811c300ed0>>

Discussion

Note: This function does nothing unless the DEBUG preprocessor macro is defined.

This Mockingbird function accepts one parameter as input, an expression that will be returned by the function when it is called, allowing the function to be used as a pass-through.

Expression usage

^debugBreak(Here is the first problem)

In a debug build, the expression above would result in the string “Here is the first problem”, and then a breakpoint would be triggered in the Xcode debugger.

In non-debug builds, nothing happens.

Discussion

When experiencing trouble with a complex expression giving unexpected results, seeing the parse tokens lets you understand how the expression evaluator is interpreting your expression.

This Mockingbird function accepts a single parameter, the expression to tokenize. The input expression is returned, allowing the function to be used as a pass-through.

Expression usage

^tokenize(This $aint.no ^party())

The expression above would result in console output similar to the following:

--> Tokens for object expression "This $aint.no ^party()":
<MBMLLiteralToken@0x7f8ac03aaea0: "This " {0, 5}>
<MBMLVariableReferenceToken@0x7f8abce042a0: "$aint" {5, 5}> containing 1 token:
    0: <MBMLObjectSubreferenceToken@0x7f8ac0670a00: ".no" {10, 3}>
<MBMLLiteralToken@0x7f8ac036f4a0: " " {13, 1}>
<MBMLFunctionCallToken@0x7f8ac0645bb0: "^party()" {14, 8}>

Discussion

When experiencing trouble with a complex expression giving unexpected results, seeing the parse tokens lets you understand how the expression evaluator is interpreting your expression.

This Mockingbird function accepts a single parameter, the expression to tokenize. The input expression is returned, allowing the function to be used as a pass-through.

Expression usage

^tokenizeBoolean(This != ^party())

The expression above would result in console output similar to the following:

--> Tokens for boolean expression "This != ^party()":
<MBMLInequalityTestToken@0x7fa93fb5fbe0: "!=" {5, 2}> containing 2 tokens:
    0: <MBMLLiteralToken@0x7fa93fb45970: "This" {0, 4}>
    1: <MBMLFunctionCallToken@0x7fa93fb4af80: "^party()" {8, 8}>

Discussion

When experiencing trouble with a complex expression giving unexpected results, seeing the parse tokens lets you understand how the expression evaluator is interpreting your expression.

This Mockingbird function accepts a single parameter, the expression to tokenize. The input expression is returned, allowing the function to be used as a pass-through.

Expression usage

^tokenizeMath(($user.firstName.length + $user.lastName.length) + 1)

The expression above would result in console output similar to the following:

--> Tokens for math expression "($user.firstName.length + $user.lastName.length) + 1":
<MBMLAdditionOperatorToken@0x7fa940048b70: "+" {49, 1}> containing 2 tokens:
    0: <MBMLMathGroupingToken@0x7fa9400a87d0: "($user.firstName.length + $user.lastName.length)" {0, 48}> containing 1 token:
        0: <MBMLAdditionOperatorToken@0x7fa93ae86fd0: "+" {23, 1}> containing 2 tokens:
            0: <MBMLVariableReferenceToken@0x7fa93faf9400: "$user" {0, 5}> containing 2 tokens:
                0: <MBMLObjectSubreferenceToken@0x7fa940049ac0: ".firstName" {5, 10}>
                1: <MBMLObjectSubreferenceToken@0x7fa93fae4340: ".length" {15, 7}>
            1: <MBMLVariableReferenceToken@0x7fa93aeb8f70: "$user" {25, 5}> containing 2 tokens:
                0: <MBMLObjectSubreferenceToken@0x7fa93aea8d90: ".lastName" {30, 9}>
                1: <MBMLObjectSubreferenceToken@0x7fa93fa52f60: ".length" {39, 7}>
    1: <MBMLNumericLiteralToken@0x7fa94007d100: "1" {51, 1}>

Discussion

This Mockingbird function accepts a single parameter, the expression being benchmarked. The input expression is also returned by the function, allowing it to be used as a pass-through.

Expression usage

In this example, the MBML function ^currentTime() is benchmarked:

^bench(^currentTime())

One run of this benchmark resulted in the console output:

--> Evaluated variable expansion expression "^currentTime()" in 1.90139e-05 seconds

Discussion

This Mockingbird function accepts a single parameter, the expression being benchmarked. The input expression is also returned by the function, allowing it to be used as a pass-through.

Expression usage

In this example, a boolean expression involving the MBML function ^randomPercent() is benchmarked:

^benchBool(^randomPercent() -GTE 0.5)

One run of this benchmark resulted in the console output:

--> Evaluated boolean expression "^randomPercent() -GTE 0.5" in 4.09484e-05 seconds

Discussion

This Mockingbird function accepts two pipe-separated parameters:

• The number of repetitions to perform, a numeric expression indicating how many times expression will be evaluated

• The expression to evaluate

The function returns the result of the final evaluation of expression.

Expression usage

When combined with benchmarking, this function is useful for evaluating the performance of MBML function implementations and other types of expressions.

 ^bench(^repeat(1000|^currentTime()))

The expression above calls the ^currentTime() function 1,000 times and then logs the result to the console.

One run of this benchmark resulted in the console output:

--> Successfully repeated object expression "^currentTime()" 1000 times
--> Evaluated object expression "^repeat(1000|^currentTime())" in 0.010256 seconds

Discussion

This Mockingbird function accepts two pipe-separated parameters:

• The number of repetitions to perform, a numeric expression indicating how many times expression will be evaluated

• The expression to evaluate

The function returns the result of the final evaluation of expression.

Expression usage

When combined with benchmarking, this function is useful for evaluating the performance of MBML expressions.

 ^benchBool(^repeatBool(10000|^randomPercent() -GTE 0.5))

In the example above, the boolean expression ^randomPercent() -GTE 0.5 is evaluated 10,000 times.

One run of this benchmark resulted in the console output:

--> Successfully repeated boolean expression "^randomPercent() -GTE 0.5" 1000 times
--> Evaluated boolean expression "^repeatBool(10000|^randomPercent() -GTE 0.5)" in 0.013923 seconds

Discussion

This Mockingbird function accepts two or three pipe-separated parameters:

• The deprecated variable name, a string expression yielding the name of the variable being deprecated.

• The preferred variable name, a string expression yielding the variable name that should be used instead of deprecated variable name.

• An optional module class, a string expression representing the name of a class implementing the MBModule protocol. If specified, the MBModuleLog associated with module class will be used to issue the deprecation warning. If this parameter is omitted, the deprecation warning will be issued using the MBDataEnvironmentModule’s log.

This method returns preferred variable name, allowing it to be used as a pass-through.

Expression usage

^deprecateVariableInFavorOf(place|location|MBGeolocationModule)

The expression above would result in the following message

DEPRECATION WARNING: Support will be dropped from a future version of the
MBGeolocation module for Mockingbird:

    The MBML variable "place" has been deprecated; please update your code
    to use "location" instead