What does @variable mean?

I've found things like

WatchUi.loadResource(@Rez.Fonts.id_font_tiny);

in various open source projects, and I can't find it documented anywhere.

I initially thought it was an alternate syntax for '$.', but that doesn't seem to be the case. I've tried adding @ in front of various variables, and as far as I can tell, its completely ignored... but then what's it for, and why does the compiler accept it?

[edit] It's not even restricted to variables. I can say

var x = @42;

var y = @x * @3 + @(x - 4);

And the compiler behaves as if the @s weren't there.

0 subra over 4 years ago

This may help to understand it

https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/core-topics/resources/

0 markw65 over 4 years ago in reply to subra

I don't think that's relevant (unless I'm missing something buried deep in that page).

Its just saying that in a resource file, you can say things like:

<menu-item id="item_1" label="@Strings.menu_item_1_label" />

But this isn't in a resource file, this is in a .mc file.

0 subra over 4 years ago in reply to markw65

Please refer to the section "Referencing Resources Within Resource Files" in the above link and in addition

https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/api-docs/Toybox/Application.html#loadResource-instance_function

0 subra over 4 years ago in reply to subra

markw65 said:
WatchUi.loadResource(@Rez.Fonts.id_font_tiny);

OK, with this instruction you load the resource "id_font_tiny" (which is a font) from the resource file "Rez.Fonts" (which contains several fonts or other things). This sub-reference needs the "@" .

0 markw65 over 4 years ago in reply to subra

Yes, I read that section, and as I said, thats only relevant for referencing resources from within resource files. Nowhere does it say that you should put an @ on the reference from the .mc file. And it works perfectly well without. In fact the @-in-mc file isn't used *anywhere* in any of the sdk sample projects (obviously it is used in resource files, as documented). But it *is* used in a few, old, open source projects.

I'm guessing that it's a typo due to copy and paste between a resource file and a .mc file, and because the compiler just happens to ignore it, the author simply didn't notice. Alternatively, maybe it *used* to mean something, and might even have been necessary, and the compiler simply continued to accept it for backwards compatibility...