When Tasker encounters a variable name in a text, it replaces the name with the current value of the relevant variable before carrying out the action.
The main purposes of variables are:
Variables which have an all-lower-case name (e.g. %fruit_bar) are local, meaning that their value is specific to the task or scene in which they are used.
Variables which have one or more capital letters in their name (e.g. %Car, %WIFI) are global, meaning that wherever they are accessed from the same value is returned.The values of built-In variables are updated automatically by Tasker.
Run Shell
and plugins). Every action sets or clears it, so it must be saved (e.g. with Variable Set) if it will be needed later than in the immediate next action.
Example: if task A uses action Perform Task
to start task B, then when task A is run by pressing
the Play button in the task edit screen, %caller1 in task B will show task=A, %caller2 will show ui.
The format of each entry in the array is callertype(=callername(:subcallername))
Caller types ares detailed below:
(dynamic)
(dynamic)
Variable Set, %newline, \n Variable Split, %CALS, %newline Flash, %CALS(#) calendars, first one is %CALS(1)For the sign \n, press carriage-return on the keyboard.
Misc / Test
action, specifying %TIMES for the data.
(dynamic, monitored)
(dynamic, monitored)
(monitored,dynamic)
(monitored,dynamic)
(monitored,dynamic)
(monitored,dynamic)
%CLIP (dynamic)
(monitored,dynamic)
(dynamic)
%HTTPR / %HTTPD / %HTTPL(monitored,dynamic)
(dynamic)
(monitored,dynamic)
Menu / Prefs / More / Display Off Monitoring / Light Sensor
.
(dynamic)
(dynamic)
(dynamic)
(dynamic)
(dynamic)
(dynamic)
(dynamic)
(dynamic)
(monitored,dynamic)
Magnetic Field
.
(monitored,dynamic)
(monitored, dynamic)
Notification
or Notification Removed
event, use variable %evtprm2 instead
of %NTITLE. This is much more reliable and you have access to other parts of the notification (%evtprm3 etc)
(monitored,dynamic)
Menu / Prefs / Monitor / Display Off Monitoring / Pressure Sensor
.
(dynamic)
(dynamic)
(dynamic)
(dynamic)
(dynamic)
(dynamic)
(dynamic, monitored)
(monitored,dynamic)
Menu / Prefs / Monitor / Display Off Monitoring / Temp. Sensor
.
(monitored)
(monitored,dynamic)
(dynamic)
(dynamic)
(monitored,dynamic)
Variables marked dynamic
in the list above trigger changes in Variable Value states
and Variable Set events whenever their value changes.
Variables marked monitored
will cause the relevant monitor to startup to track their state
when they are used in contexts or tasks which are used by widgets or enabled profiles.
For instance, %CELLID used in a Flash action will cause cell location to be tracked.
Limitation: monitored variables cannot be detected in anonymous shortcuts.
When the relevant provider (Net or GPS) of a location context is active, these variables report the values from the provider, which may be more recent than Tasker has seen if other applications are asking for location.
When the relevant provider is not active, these variables report the last values seen by Tasker,
which could be the result of a Get Location
action or of monitoring for a Location Context
.
That means the the reported fix times could go backwards, if you turn off the location provider between two uses of the variables.
Location variables can also be manually updated by running the Get Location
action.
In general, it's best to use local variables wherever possible because:
Note: multiple copies of the same task running at the same time each have their own separate copy of their local variables.
Each scene has its own set of local variables which it shares with the task that created it; both the scene and task see changes to the variables made by either.
Any task which starts as a result of a scene event (e.g. a tap on an element) also shares the variables of the scene (and thus of the original task which created the scene).
As a consequence, a task started by a scene event (e.g. Tap on an element) which shows a new scene e.g. via the Show Scene action, will result in the second scene sharing the variables of the first scene.
When a task shows a scene that was created by a different task (or a different copy of the same task) and subsequently hidden, the task's variables are copied to the scene variables (overriding values of variables which already exist) but the task does not share the scene variables and cannot see changes to them.
Variable Set, %new, \%old
Will set the value of %new to %old, not the value of %old.
In order to precede a variable name with a \ you can escape the backslash e.g.
Variable Set, %new, \\%old
Will set the value of %new to \ followed by the value of %old.
Variable Set, %colour, red
Variable Set, %varname, colour
Flash %%varname
... will flash red.
Using this notation it's possible to assign variables whose name is not known beforehand:
Read File, variablename, To Var, %varname
Variable Set, %%varname, red
This will set the variable whose name is stored in the file variablename
to red.
You can nest references as deeply as you like (e.g. %%%%var
)
but mental stress and bugs are sure to follow.
If any part of the chain has an invalid variable name then the original
reference will be returned. In the first example, if %varname
is set to !!!
, then %%varname will be flashed instead
of red.
Local variables are lost at the end of the task they were created in, or when the parent scene is destroyed in the case of tasks called from scenes.
User-variables which have not had a value assigned do not have replacements carried out e.g. in the expression I love %fruit, if %fruit is uninitialized, the expression remains as it is, otherwise %fruit is replaced with the value.
Exception: uninitialized variables used in mathematical expressions are replaced with 0.
http://tasker.dinglisch.net/plugins.html
which has the relevant details.
They are especially useful when used with the For
action, since you can
perform a set of actions on each element in turn e.g. list a set of files then
test each one.
If the four variables %arr1, %arr2, %arr3, %arr4 hold respectively a, b, c and d then we have an array with 4 elements. These variables can be used just like any other, however it is also possible to access them in special ways. Here are some examples:
Array Set
:Variable Split
on an existing (simple) variable:Variable Set
:Array Push
to add an initial element
List Files
.
Array Push
action.
The Fill Spaces parameter might need more explanation. It is only relevant if one or more of the array elements are undefined. As an example, if we have the array elements %arr1 and %arr3 containing apple and banana:
Use the Array Pop
action. Note the difference between Array Pop
and Variable Clear
:
Pop
reduces the number of elements in the array, while Clear
merely changes elements to undefined.
Example: if we have the array elements %arr1, %arr2, %arr3 containing apple,pear and banana:
Array Clear
.In most cases you could also use Variable Clear %arr* with Pattern Matching checked,
but that would also delete variables called e.g. %arrTOODEETOO so Array Clear
is safer.
Array Process
action offers various sorting options, amongst other things.
In terms of storage efficiency, they are also fairly hopeless. You probably do not want to store tens of thousands of items in an array.
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