Re: showLastLength

[David Sumbler]

On Wed, 2020-06-03 at 18:19 +0200, David Kastrup wrote:
> David Sumbler <david@aeolia.co.uk> writes:
> 
> > I have never used 'showLastLength' or 'showFirstLength' until
> > today.
> > 
> > I inserted a line such as
> >     showLastLength = R1*5
> > exactly as shown in NR3.4.2, immediately before the first (and
> > only)
> > \score { } section.
> > 
> > But every time I try to compile the file I get:
> > 
> >     syntax error, unexpected SYMBOL
> > 
> >     showLastLength = R1*5
> > 
> > Why might this be?
> > 
> > I am using Lilypond v2.19.82
> 
> Once you stop assuming that the manual writers are incompetent and/or
> realise that almost all examples in the manual are actually run
> through
> LilyPond while producing the manual, it should be obvious that the
> principal problem will lie in the particular way you wrote your
> source,
> making it different from what is done in the manual.
> 
> That means that it is absolutely essential to include a minimal
> example
> <http://lilypond.org/tiny-examples> for diagnosis.
> 
> Lacking that information, it would be my guess that you have your
> \score
> inside of a \book section, and those don't allow assignments inside.
> But since you neither include an example nor even mention \book, this
> is
> a mere guess.

I don't know why you think I assume that the manual writers are
incompetent - I don't assume any such thing.

I asked why I might be getting the error.  And you have kindly answered
my question, even though it appears that I inadvertently irritated you
to some degree.

The fact is that, yes, the score in question was accessed in a \book
section in another file.  I was not aware that I couldn't use
showLastLength inside a \book { }.

In the mean time, I got around the problem by using
Score.skipTypesetting instead.  I was getting a warning about a hairpin
being too small, with of course no indication of where in the score it
might be - tricky in a 150-page score.  I eventually tracked it down.

Thanks for your help.

David