Home THE HYPERCARD CENTER

HyperTalk Reference
Home » HyperTalk Reference » Commands

Note: This is a work in progress and will be formatting errors. Read more about the project on the home page.

divide

divide [chunk of] container by number

The divide command divides the number in the container or chunk by number and puts the result into the container.

Dividing by 0 places INF (for infinity) into the chunk or container. Division is carried out to a precision of up to 19 decimal places.

Note: The container or chunk referred to must contain a number.

If the result is put into a field or the Message box, it is displayed according to the global property numberFormat.

(You can use the is a operator to see if the container is a number.)


Placeholders

container
HyperTalk DefinitionA place where you can store and retrieve a value.

There are six types of containers in HyperCard: a variable, a button, a field, the selection, the Message box, and menus.

myVariable
[the] selection
the Message box
btn 3
bg btn "Names"
card field 1
bkgnd field "Total"
menu 2
menu "Edit"
Additionally, you can refer to a button or field by its part number:

card part 1
last background part
AppleScript DefinitionAn object that contains one or more other objects, known as elements of the container. In a reference, the container specifies where to find an object. You specify containers with the reserved words of or in.

You can also use the possesive form ('s) to specify containers. For example, in

first window's name
the container is first window. The object it contains is a name property.

number
An expression that evaluates to a number.

For example:

169 / 19
pi
(60.625 * 500)
average(1,4,5,10)
i+1 -- (where i is a number)
line 1 of fld "Debits"


Note: Formally, HyperCard distinguishes between factors (simple values) and expressions. The difference between factors and expression matters only if you like to drop parentheses. Most functions take factors as their parameters, which is why abs of -10 + 2 returns 12 and abs of (-10 + 2) returns 8. In short, always use parentheses to group things the way you want them to evaluate, and you won’t have to worry about the difference between factors and expressions.

Related Topics

« disable | HyperTalk Reference | doMenu »


Version 0.7b1 (March 24, 2022)

Made with Macintosh

Switch to Modern View