VBA Rubberducking

Mat's Mug

00:06

@RubberDuck major breaking changes coming up... for the greater good..

I'm replacing SyntaxTreeNode, LogicalCodeLine and Instruction by a much simpler Node and its properties.. and the class will be mutable.

Mat's Mug

00:22

@Phrancis not half as much as I want to ;)

RubberDuck

00:46

Give me 24 hours before you push to master please @Mat'sMug.

Mat's Mug

I'm not pushing anything for a while ;)

RubberDuck

Ok. Cool.

Mat's Mug

I'm working on a local branch anyway

RubberDuck

New release in the am. =)

Mat's Mug

great!

Mat's Mug

01:16

had to modify the VB6 grammar to support Option Compare Database

I wonder if there are other VBA-specifics..

RubberDuck

Oh yeah. I hadn't thought of that one.

Mat's Mug

and comments remain problematic for now...

Mat's Mug

02:22

best I get is an ANTLR ErrorNodeImpl... which still counts as a child node, but as far as ANTLR is concerned, the grammar isn't taking it :(

perhaps comments can/should be parsed separately...

Mat's Mug

02:34

oh and another issue: the grammar assumes Option instructions are at the top of a module.

and I can't seem to be able to tweak the grammar to change that...

RubberDuck

Guess I should read up on ANTLR a bit...

Maybe publish it as a branch so I can take a look at it?

Mat's Mug

how do I do that again?

RubberDuck

Depends... In VS you should be able to create a new branch in the team explorer by going to the branches "tab"

Or Git bash would be

Git checkout -b newbranchName
Git push newbranchName

Damn. No. git push origin newBranchName

Mat's Mug

hold on

RubberDuck

No rush though. I'm heading to bed shortly.

Mat's Mug

02:39

merging master into that local branch first

oh shit

66 conflicts

ah, looks like it's just the VBA.Parser namespace rename

eh, I asked for it...

And damn, my laptop just died on me.

Boom. Dead.

RubberDuck

LOL. Ouch. Yeah. I knew that would be painful.

Awww man. Lame. =(

Mat's Mug

It did that a few times when I was installing VSC.. just instant shut down, without warning.

RubberDuck

If you already have that branch, just publish it from team explorer when you're back up.

I'm just curious to see

Mat's Mug

Sure

RubberDuck

Oghhhh. That's not good cuz.

Mat's Mug

02:47

Yeah. Restarting now

FML

RubberDuck

Same machine you were having trouble with before?

Mat's Mug

No, the fried HDD was the Win8.1 desktop - this is a Win7 laptop

I must be cursed

RubberDuck

Oh man. That's shitty.

Mat's Mug

It might have something to do with the fact that the battery is completely dead - without AC power it just won't start. And unplug it and... instant death

Oh there's a Kernel-Processor-Power warning entry in my event log

Great, haven't lost anything :)

RubberDuck

03:03

Gives a new meaning to watch-the-battery

Cya Mug.

Mat's Mug

lol

good night!

Mat's Mug

03:23

Ugh. Again.

@RubberDuck congrats btw, you're getting a +100 bounty from @200_success for winning the "lots of laughs" best-of category!

Duga

03:42

[retailcoder/Rubberduck] retailcoder created branch LexicalTokens

[retailcoder/Rubberduck] retailcoder pushed commit 8c35ca9b to LexicalTokens

> removed parser namespace

[retailcoder/Rubberduck] retailcoder pushed commit 9e9bcb24 to LexicalTokens

> added Antlr4

[retailcoder/Rubberduck] retailcoder pushed commit 49216549 to LexicalTokens

> added ANTLR generated files, Node class and a few implementations

[retailcoder/Rubberduck] retailcoder pushed commit 34228f94 to LexicalTokens

> merged master

Duga

04:50

[retailcoder/Rubberduck] retailcoder pushed commit 11bba961 to LexicalTokens

> merged sub, function and property listeners

Mat's Mug

why does GitHub think the branch is 29 commits behind Master??!!

@RubberDuck for the record, I'm not 100% confident on the strategy here: VBTreeListener basically represents a code module being parsed; as the walker walks through the parse tree, EnterSubStmt runs when the walker enters a Sub - the idea is to start collecting "child nodes" there, and to stop when ExitSubStmt runs; at which point I add a Node to the _members list.

This _members list will become the members of the ModuleNode that will be exposed with a public getter that the VBParser will call to return the Parse method's return value (which for now is a SyntaxTreeNode, but SyntaxTreeNode will be deprecated once that works)

and TTGTB

Mat's Mug

05:30

Side note, with ANTLR doing the parsing, we should consider exporting code files and parsing files (with the attributes) instead of just strings. The module name can then be taken from the VB_Name attribute instead of passed as a parameter.

Also there's a problem with the location of tokens... Start/EndColumn don't seem to account for line breaks... which is annoying. A lot.

Oh and the hidden stuff that VBE doesn't display will need to be accounted for in the Start/EndLine when we want to select code in the IDE. ......in other words, that shit breaks a truckload of things......

Duga

12:47

[retailcoder/Rubberduck] ckuhn203 closed issue #150: Build and test new installer

[retailcoder/Rubberduck] ckuhn203 created tag v1.1

RubberDuck

@Mat'sMug I'll look at it and play with it as soon as I get the release notes drafted up.

Took me longer than expected to build the new installer.

RubberDuck

13:14

@Mat'sMug Oh hey! Look at that! heh. Awesome.

> You seem like a nice guy. I don't want the raptors to get you.

Mat's Mug

14:44

I think ANTLR alone won't cut it. We'll need a [fail-proof] way of parsing the comments (and what about commented-out code?), and perhaps we can use ANTLR with both the source from the VBE and the full source files, from exported modules - and use whichever way applies to what we want to be doing.

RubberDuck

I'll know more once I see what ANTLR actually does. I'm afraid I can't add much to the conversation until then.

Theoretically, we should be able to just fix the grammar file, but your way should work if we can't.

Mat's Mug

Perhaps we can just give the ANTLR parser the string contents of a method, if all else fails.

RubberDuck

Looking at this, that may or may not work... Not sure. Have to play with it.

I think I can get comments to work though.

Not like, parsed as code, but as a comment node.

Which shouldn't be hard to turn into TestNodes and TodoNodes.

Chrismas007

15:12

Anyone noticed an uptick of quality answers on horribly low quality Qs lately? I mean I know that is standard fare on SO, but it seems to be exceptionally prevalent atm.

RubberDuck

15:25

Honestly haven't been spending much time on SO lately @Chrismas007. I've actually had work to do =(

Thinking of. I'll be off the grid next week @Mat'sMug. Gotta take a trip into the home office.

Chrismas007

15:41

@RubberDuck I forget, why aren't we completely burninating macros?

RubberDuck

Because they mean something different than what VBA OPs mean.

The tag needs serious cleanup, but no one is willing to do it.

@Chrismas007

3

Q: What to do about [Macros]?

This question was last asked about 2 years ago and it is still an issue. The wiki's both seem to have been updated, but the vast majority of people abusing this tag are new users (whom I can safely assume are not reading the tag wikis). Out of 9,439 macrosquestions: 2938 are also tagged with v...

Chrismas007

@RubberDuck Just burned about 25ish back through Jan 15 before I got bored and stopped

RubberDuck

@Chrismas007 I wonder how bad it is now....

well, there are 2,000 more macros tags than there was before...

Half of those are also tagged with vba

Chrismas007

15:57

4152 tagged macros and vba

stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/macros+vba

RubberDuck

Yeah. I meant half of the new ones.

Chrismas007

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/macros+excel+-vba 1407 macros+excel no vba
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/macros+-excel+vba 1169 macros+vba no excel
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/macros+excel+vba 2984 macros+vba+excel
2984+1169+1407= 5560

RubberDuck

Yeah. It's an effin' mess.

Chrismas007

16:14

Updated your Meta Q @RubberDuck

RubberDuck

Thanks for the bump.

@Chrismas007 Digging those editing rights eh?

Chrismas007

@RubberDuck yassss

@RubberDuck I have a suggested edit in on the macros to change the excerpt (which is really all the normal user looks at) to include a "Don't use this for VBA/Office" line...

Suggested excerpt:
> A macro is a rule or pattern that specifies how a certain input sequence (often a sequence of characters) should be mapped to an output sequence (also often a sequence of characters) according to a defined procedure. Macros created in VBA/MS Office should use the VBA and/or <Program>-VBA tag.

syntax for a quote in chat @RubberDuck?

Edit APPROVED! :-D

stackoverflow.com/tags/macros/info (Show excerpt)

Chrismas007

17:05

you are down in the answers making jokes with 200_success but you didn't catch the sarcasm in my first comment? C'mon this is meta... — Chrismas007 18 secs ago

Phrancis

@ticker ... MySQL + VBA sounds like a terrible idea...

3

RubberDuck

It is @Phrancis.

RubberDuck

17:30

0

A: What to do about [Macros]?

We can't just burn the tag entirely because it does have a valid use and relevance for the c and c++ languages. So, we're going to need to clean up macros by hand. Which sucks. Pretty bad. But I'm willing to put some effort into cleaning this up. Hopefully some others in the community will lend a...

Chrismas007

@RubberDuck Your link doesn't work

RubberDuck

@Chrismas007 What link?

Chrismas007

stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/macros+excel+OR+vba+macros

It brings up more than you want

Mat's Mug

seen this?

4

Q: How about an interesting newsletter?

The weekly newsletter is rather simplistic. We get "Top questions last week" and "Can you answer these?", and from my understanding the top questions are taken from the "This Week" tab, and the "Can you answer these?" section consists in a random selection of unanswered questions. Nice, but pret...

discussion newsletter

RubberDuck

Did now.

@Chrismas007 Fixed that. I just copied a search someone else wrote. My bad.

Chrismas007

17:50

stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/vba+macros

First two can't be burned because of migration @RubberDuck

ugh

RubberDuck

There are thousands. It's gonna take some time.

By time we get through it, migration will have been long finalized on that.

Chrismas007

9

A: Why can't I vote to delete a migrated question?

Migrated questions get locked so that we don't end up with two different versions of one question on separate sites. The idea is to direct all activity for that question to the new site. Unfortunately a lock limits all actions except for flagging. Migrated questions do get automatically deleted ...

Yea... saw that.

Chrismas007

18:10

1

A: How to end infinite "change" loop in VBA

With error handling to ensure .EnableEvents goes back to True: Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range) On Error GoTo CleanExit If Target.Address = "$Q$21" Then Application.EnableEvents = False Target.Value = Target.Value * 3 End If CleanExit: Application.Enabl...

Funny how I was just thinking the higher voted A was first in so should get the accept, but he only mentions how to do the error handling, but I included an error handler... And all the sudden the user switches his accept... How fortuitous...

Chrismas007

19:20

Pablo

59 9

vba sql ms-access-2010 access-vba excel ms-access excel-vba

Look at his questions... they are just evolutions of the same code block...

RubberDuck

@Chrismas007 idk. Looks like evolutions of maybe two or three code blocks....

Over 17 questions.

Mat's Mug

lol

Chrismas007

@RubberDuck True, I started helping him at first, but then I just kept seeing the same code with a new issue... Which I don't really think is the general purpose of SO...

Mat's Mug

2 words: help. vampire.

2

RubberDuck

It's not. Some people just aren't destined to be programmers is all.

2

Chrismas007

19:24

@RubberDuck ^ Me. But I try... :-D

RubberDuck

idk. You seem to know what you're talking about.

How long you been at it?

Chrismas007

I did some elective coursework (Business Programming) in college around '08 and then have stuck with it off and on over my biz career. Used to program math formula helpers and games on my TI-83 plus in high school (which is where I learned most of my syntax logic) :-D

@RubberDuck Have you used all your 20 suggested edit queue up yet? I am trying to test a bug

RubberDuck

Nah. I've actually been working in between between burning macros

Traveling next week, so it's busy now.

Chrismas007

Can you link me to a question that has a suggested edit pending?

RubberDuck

@ticker, haven't I seen that question like 5 times in the last week?

cheezsteak

19:32

@RubberDuck updates or edits to a question bumps it back on the ticker?

just like on SO frontpage

Chrismas007

stackoverflow.com/posts/28031396/revisions

Hey look burn help!

RubberDuck

@cheezsteak No. @ticker shows new questions.

@Chrismas007 I noticed Vogel helping out earlier.

He's a CR regular.

Mat's Mug

@RubberDuck just his shadow though ;)

Chrismas007

@Shog9 I know you've marked this as status-bydesign but I'd like to add that this bypasses the 20 post limit on the suggested edit queue FYI. If I click on edit(1) when there is a suggested edit pending, it tells me what the pending edit is, but will not let me do anything because I have already hit my limit, but if I use the URL trick in the Q, it bypasses that and goes straight to editor. — Chrismas007 38 secs ago

Chrismas007

21:23

0

Q: Workaround Bug in Suggested Edits After 20 Review Limit

Normally, when you are reviewing suggested edits, and you come across one you would like to further edit, you (as the reviewer) can click on Improve Edit and make changes. When you click on Improve Edit: The Suggested Edit is accepted The Suggested edit user is awarded +2 Rep Your edit is adde...

bug review edits suggested-edits revisions-list

@RubberDuck aaaaaaand another one is up...

RubberDuck

21:49

I'll burn vba-macros faster than you can spit. — RubberDuck 2 mins ago

@RubberDuck I know almost nothing about them, but it seems to be a concept people talk about and more-or-less agree what it means. But what ever is the correct term for them, that should be the base for the tag. — hyde 1 min ago

Well..... you've got a point. It could be created and then synomized. That way people who don't know what they're talking about find the tag they're looking for in spite of themselves. — RubberDuck 21 secs ago

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