roBitmap and the colon-centipede "Missing or invalid PHY"

Archived
1

I have shared before my distaste for warnings that mis-label themselves “errors” but are neither compile-time nor runtime errors. Or aren’t they? I hate the waffling:

Brightscript Debugger> bmp = createObject("roBitmap", "images/roku-logo.png")
*** ERROR: Missing or invalid PHY: 'images/roku-logo.png'

Brightscript Debugger> ? bmp
invalid

I did something that RTFM told me i can do! See the examples - unqualified file names. So ok, i know colon-centipedes show Co’s deprecation of certain practices, i’d assume here is a frown to not using absolute file names (and why not, if i may ask?!). Except turns out, something has changed in the Roku bowels and now it is a proper error, except it’s shown as “improper error”…

At the least, how about fixing TFM to say fully-qualified paths are required nowadays?

2

Just curious, was there ever a time where you could use relative pathnames? I’d always assumed that those roBitmap examples were erroneous, given that:

https://sdkdocs.roku.com/display/sdkdoc/File+System#FileSystem-Pathnames:

There is no concept of a current working directory or relative paths. All path names must use the absolute Roku Streaming Player Pathname format above.

3

“belltown” wrote:
Just curious, was there ever a time where you could use relative pathnames? I’d always assumed that those roBitmap examples were erroneous,
I have it on good faith (gentleman’s… scout’s honor?) that it had worked once upon a time as shown and (generally speaking) the examples in the docs have been tested. Notice there are 2 examples that are awfully specific - would have to be conspiracy theorist to speculate that was typed-but-never-tested…

To satisfy archeological cravings, probably should dig out yer olde PDFs on this :sunglasses:

4

“EnTerr” wrote:
…
and (generally speaking) the examples in the docs have been tested.
…

The error message and return value are correct.
Relative paths are not (and have not been) supported on the Roku platform.

With respect to the documentation samples, unfortunately, I can attest that many of the legacy examples are not functional on the Roku platform.
I’m surprised that a Roku representative would claim that they are 100% tested and correct.

5

“RokuKC” wrote:
With respect to the documentation samples, unfortunately, I can attest that many of the legacy examples are not functional on the Roku platform.
I’m surprised that a Roku representative would claim that they are 100% tested and correct.
No Roku rep has told me examples are 100% tested and correct - did i leave that impression? - sorry if i “misspoke” somehow. It’s the “implied warranty” of documentation that i trusted, esp. something that has been published for five years or so, chaff should have been blown away. That’s why we say “RTFM”, right?