scan engine edits not working

azb

The scan engine does not accept any changes I make to my scans.

Go to a scan, edit, save, like I always have done. Exit to dashboard. Then reenter scan, and the changes are not saved.

This happens even if I change just a comment line. Happens on 2 different computers, and on my phone, and in both MS Edge and Firefox browser.

I reported this to support this morning. Please do the same if you notice this. No reply yet, and still not working.

This is the second "period of time" that this occurred to ALL MY SCANS. Lots of annoying bugs in the program.

azb

SC response ...

Generally, if you cannot save a scan to your account, it means that there was an error in the scan. The workbench will not save a criteria if it finds an error in it.

Errors are not limited to scan expressions and clauses. They include typographical issues as well. For instance, if you've criteria or your comments include apostrophes, quotation marks, or diacritical marks, etc. they may have an error, as only the keystrokes found on a standard typewriter keyboard can be saved in a scan. Things like curvy quotes, “ (as opposed to straight quotes, "), and accents, `, that are found in word processing software, cannot be saved in a scan.

MY problem was ... a simple % in a comment line ...
// .... position (%BB) ..... The scan engine viewed this % as an error, and discarded my edits

For some reason, the % symbol causes problems in chartlist names, scans, etc. ... Be careful with this.

markd

thanks for the heads up. I haven't come across that problem (but I don't use the "%"), and it's odd that it should occur on a comment line, which the documentation says, I believe, the scan engine ignores. Apparently, it reads the characters after the comment line first before choosing to ignore them.

lmkwin

A while ago, the scan engine used to substitute an %27 for an apostrophe in Symbol Names saved to a chartlist from a scan. I haven't noticed it recently but I used to wonder why I had BJ%27s Wholesale in my chartlist. And it had a spell where it was subbing %20 for spaces in the Chartlist and Symbol name field.

I haven't noticed the failure to save a scan change based on a commented out line's content, but I don't use illegal content like some may. I always assumed that anything after the // was "ignored".

markd

Developers use libraries to call frequently used functions (several lines of code that perform a single function) to avoid re-writing the same code over and over (which simplifies testing also). Libraries include character sets - the binary code for representing and controlling the placement of text and symbols. There are many character sets which are mostly similar (use the same binary code for a, b, c, etc.) but some have a few variations for special purposes, especially among the special characters like %, #, @, etc. If you call the wrong character set you get misrepresentations like the ones we are talking about. The error doesn't always come out in testing because the character sets are otherwise so similar.

Here's some background:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/ASCII

azb

I think they have a problem with the % symbol.

When I build a scan with the % in the name, the scan runs correctly, and saves the resulting file correctly, but it is given a new name with the % replaced with a few characters of garbage. ... Then, If I edit that resulting file name in the edit mode, and change the garbage back to %, it stores it correctly.

I think their efforts on the tangential ACP drained programming resources from their vastly dominant StockCharts program. I will guess 90-95% use only StockCharts, 5-10% use ACP ... why would anyone use both ?? ...too many different buttons and commands to learn for both as a user.