Prevent variable use without a declaration

Hi all,

Is there a way to prevent the use of a variable without first declaring it? There is a feature like this in visual basic.

If the ide doesn't support this check, is there a plugin that could apply this verification on "check for errors" pushbutton click?

This would really be helpfull to spot variable scope errors (global vs local to a function).

Thanks.

p.s. I use the visualblitz ide.

Do a search on this forum for similar requests. I think someone came up with a way using types.

I have yet to find an example that illustrates mandatory variable declaration.

Thanks anyway.

If you're keen to search for it, the phrase you're looking for is 'option explicit'. It comes up quite a bit.

Or did, until a clever chap by the name of Michael Reitzenstein came up with the Unofficial Blitzbasic Preprocessor , which amongst other things includes the ability to make Blitz make you explicitly declare variables.

Be aware that as it's written in C# you'll need the Microsoft .NET runtimes installed to use it.

What wolron is reffering to is to put all your variables as fields of a custom type, like this:

Type variables
   Field var1, var2, var3
End Type
v.variables = New variables

But then, everytime you use a variable, you must precede it with v\. The advantage is that if you mispell it or don't declare it or something, it will give you an error: "Type field not found".

Personally, I prefer not to use it, but hey, some people do.

LineOf7s: The "check for errors" works well and does alert any reference of undeclared variables, but the actual execution crashes, which is quite unfortunate.

soja: I guess I'm gonna go with your solution.

Thanks!!

What i sometimes do to prevent me using similar variable names is name them like

tmp_loop=1
gfx_cube=CreateCube()
snd_bleep=LoadSound()

and so forth :)