Attribute cell to lookup value?

[Stephen Mattingly]

Hi All,
   Is there any way for an attribute cell (within a list) to call for a value, rather than just use the value in the cell?

currently, if i put a string variable name in the attribute cell in a list (e.g. randomColor(0) ), it tries to find a file name that is the variable name (tries to find file,"randomColor(0)" ). rather, i would like it to look up the value stored by the variable and use THAT string as a filename.

as i build complexity  into this task, my current solution becomes a pain, but my current solution is below:


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i want to randomize a list of colors at the beginning, but to keep the value the same for the rest of the experiment.

first inline

Dim randomColor(3) as String
randomColor(0)="red.bmp"
randomColor(1)="blue.bmp"
randomColor(2)="yellow.bmp"
randomColor(3)="green.bmp"
Randomize
randomizeArray randomColor

while ColorAssignCount < 49  '48 training trials

Train.SetAttrib ColorAssignCount, "Color1", randomColor(0)
Train.SetAttrib ColorAssignCount, "Color2", randomColor(1)
Train.SetAttrib ColorAssignCount, "Color3", randomColor(2)
Train.SetAttrib ColorAssignCount, "Color4", randomColor(3)

ColorAssignCount = ColorAssignCount + 1

wend
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it would be simpler to be able to call, within each list, 'randomColor(0)', as i will eventually have many lists and other elements that need randomization in a similar way.

[Paul Groot]

Just a minor detail: instead of a while loop you could use a for-loop, which is the preferred construction to iterate over an index, and is less sensitive for infinite loop 'accidents'. 

About your question: I think it would be a nice feature to be able to refer to E-Basic variables inside list elements. However, the developers of E-Prime used a different approach for dynamically loading list content: 

1) the []-syntax to reference the content of another attribute (i.e. [OtherAttrib])

2) nested lists

You can combine the two to pull values from another (nested) list. So, if you put the four filenames in a nested ColorList, you could use these values in the Train list. (Using the randomization settings of the ColorList when populating the Train list.) In this case you probably have to use the colon syntax to pull four values from the same nested attribute for a single Train trial ([OtherAttrib:0] [OtherAttrib:1] etc.). So, in your case you could place [OtherAttrib:0] in the Color1 attribute, [OtherAttrib:1] in the Color2 attribute, etc.

Also see the attached example.

Cheers

Paul

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[Stephen Mattingly]

thanks so much - this is very helpful!