Name quote a strange column name

[#1]

I'm trying to insert a column name into a fit model expression. For that I need to escape strange characters in column names to do that we use the :"name"n convention. So how do I go from a string column name to this format?

colListY = {"Plating Thickness (m\!"\!")"};
//This doesn't work
newcolumnref = eval insert("\[:"^colListY[1]^"n]\");

//Looking for this end result
:"Plating Thickness (m\!"\!")"n

Which I can then insert anywhere, for example:

insert into(expr(Y()), newcolumnref);

Anybody know of a robust way to do this?

[#2]

Can you elaborate on the "does not work" part? I tried versions back to JMP 15 and the following seems to work. Maybe I'm missing part of the issue.

Data Table( "Big Class" ):weight << Set Name( "weight\!"\!"" );

Fit Model(
	Y( Column( "weight\!"\!"" ) ),
	Effects( :age, :sex, :height ),
	Personality( "Standard Least Squares" ),
	Run()
);

[#3]

Just for giggles, I took the code back to JMP 11.2.1 and it works great.

[#4]

@XanGregg Now that I'm testing it with your code it works here as well. Let me investigate and see if I can share the failing example more completely...

[#5]

After carefull testing and going back through a few of my scripts I have not been able to make it fail again. Thanks for checking!

[#6]

@XanGregg Column formulas don't work this way and the special quoting methods does work:

colListY = {"Plating Thickness (m\!"\!")"};
dt = Open( "$sample_data/big class.jmp" );
dt:age << setname( colListY[1] );
eval(eval expr(dt << New Column( "test",
		Numeric,
		"Continuous",
		Format( "Fixed Dec", 12, 2 ),
		Formula( expr(column(colListY[1])) - :height ),
		Set Display Width( 78 )
	)));

It produces a function column in which the formula is:

Column( "Plating Thickness (m\!"\!")" ) -  /*###*/:height/*###*/

which does not evaluate.

This does:

WrapColumns = Function({ColName},{default local},
	ReturnList = {};
	If(is list(ColName),	
		For(i=1, i<=n items(ColName), i++,
			insert into(ReturnList, parse(":" || Log Capture( Print( ColName[i] ) ) || "n"))
		);
	,
		insert into(ReturnList, parse(":" || Log Capture( Print( ColName ) ) || "n"))
	);
	Return(ReturnList);
);

eval(eval expr(dt << New Column( "test2",
		Numeric,
		"Continuous",
		Format( "Fixed Dec", 12, 2 ),
		Formula( expr(WrapColumns(colListY)[1]) - :height ),
		Set Display Width( 78 )
	)));

Do you know a way to fix this with the column() system?

[#7]

(without trying it, so might be wrong)

Formula( column(expr(colListY[1])) - :height ),

I think you want the expr inside the column. That way the column function is evaluated later, using the string captured earlier.

[#8]

That results in a column formula error for me

[#9]

colListY = {"Plating Thickness (m\!"\!")"};
dt = Open( "$sample_data/big class.jmp" );
dt:age << setname( colListY[1] );
Eval(
	Eval Expr(
		dt << New Column( "test",
			Numeric,
			"Continuous",
			Format( "Fixed Dec", 12, 2 ),
			Formula( Column( Expr( colListY[1] ) )[]  ),
			Set Display Width( 78 )
		)
	)
);

The empty [ ] tells JMP to evaluate the column for the current row. 

Building column formulas like this probably hides the underlying column dependencies from JMP's formula evaluator; see discussion. If you have formula columns depending on other formula columns, JMP may not be able to peer into this indirection to figure out what to evaluate first.

[#10]

This is a great question!

[#11]

This is a great question!