Unknown Values
Introduction
Most Phidgets will have a number of states where the value from the sensor is unknown. These are commonly seen in the time between when a sensor is attached and when it reports its first data, or when the sensor reading goes outside the valid range for that sensor. During these times, any attempts to poll the unknown value will result in an Unknown or Invalid Value error.
These errors can be easily detected in the flow of programs written in languages that throw exceptions such as C#, Java and Python. In languages like C, where error codes must be explicitly checked, it is imperative to check the error code when getting the value of any parameter to ensure it is valid.
When getting a parameter of unknown value, the value retrieved by the function will be seemingly nonsensical, and well outside the normal range for that value. This table describes the constants used to convey unknown values:
| Name | Value | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|
| PUNK_BOOL | 2 | Unknown Boolean | |
| PUNK_INT8 | 127 | Unknown Short (8-bit) | |
| PUNK_UINT8 | 255 | Unknown Short (8-bit unsigned) | |
| PUNK_INT16 | 32,767 | Unknown Short (16-bit) | |
| PUNK_UINT16 | 65,535 | Unknown Short (16-bit unsigned) | |
| PUNK_INT32 | 2,147,483,647 | Unknown Integer (32-bit) | |
| PUNK_UINT32 | 4,294,967,295 | Unknown Integer (32-bit unsigned) | |
| PUNK_INT64 | 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 | Unknown Integer (64-bit) | |
| PUNK_UINT64 | 1,844,6744,073,709,551,615 | Unknown Integer (64-bit unsigned) | |
| PUNK_DBL | 1e300 | Unknown Double | |
| PUNK_FLT | 1e30 | Unknown Float | |
| PUNK_ENUM | 2,147,483,647 | Unknown Enumeration | |
| PUNK_SIZE | PUNK_UINT64 on 64-bit | PUNK_UINT32 on 32-bit | Unknown size_t |
