Millisecond Forums

Changing variable value within an "include" file

https://forums.millisecond.com/Topic25497.aspx

By desiree80 - 9/11/2018

We have switched over to using command line batch files to run our inquisit tests. Our new project is a group of 9 tests. We want to have a combined total of correct answers for all 9 tests that is tracked using the variable in an include file. I tried updating the value of the variable within each test but it stays at its original value which in this case is 0. Is this because inquisit can only read values from a text file and cannot write/update them?

Thank you!
By Dave - 9/11/2018

desiree80 - Tuesday, September 11, 2018
We have switched over to using command line batch files to run our inquisit tests. Our new project is a group of 9 tests. We want to have a combined total of correct answers for all 9 tests that is tracked using the variable in an include file. I tried updating the value of the variable within each test but it stays at its original value which in this case is 0. Is this because inquisit can only read values from a text file and cannot write/update them?

Thank you!

> Is this because inquisit can only read values from a text file and cannot write/update them?

Yes, that is correct. To keep working with the command line / Windows batch approach, you would instead have to have the batch do the updating work. I.e.
- make sure the variable of interest is logged to the script's data file, using the summary data file is probably easiest.
- after script A is done, have the command line script read in the data file [1], retrieve the variable of interest, and then update the to-be-included file accordingly.
- then have the command line script invoke script B, which can now read in the updated file per its <inlcude> as usual.

[1] Inquisit data files are just simple tab-delimited text files, so doing some mild processing and parsing to extract some value via CMD syntax should be possible. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Windows_Programming/Programming_CMD#FOR_Looping
Batch syntax is quite powerful, but has its limitations. On newer Windows systems, you could use the more modern and capable PowerShell instead.