ANY-maze Help > The ANY-maze reference > The Protocol page > The elements of a protocol > Testing > Procedures > Writing a procedure using the procedure editor > Errors and warnings while writing a procedure > Warning: This variable is not valid for the current protocol settings

Warning: This variable is not valid for the current protocol settings

Description

This warning is displayed in the list of errors and warnings at the bottom of the procedure editor when a procedure contains one or more built-in variables which, due to changes made to the experiment's protocol, are not used during a test.

Details

Settings in an ANY-maze protocol may be changed at any time, either before, during or after tests have been run. If a procedure uses a variable that depends on one of these settings, then the procedure will no longer work as expected. For example, if a procedure checks the value of the Animal is frozen variable, but the protocol is edited to turn off freezing detection, the value of the Animal is frozen variable will always be False.

As part of its checking of a procedure (either when the procedure is checked for errors, or when you leave the procedure editor), ANY-maze will warn you about any variables which are not valid with the current protocol settings.

The following built-in variables are affected by this:

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Animal centre position variables are only available if the current protocol mode includes video tracking. If not, then all position values will be zero.

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Animal is mobile - This is only available if the protocol is set up to detect immobility. If not, then this variable will always be True.

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Animal is active - This is only available if immobility detection is enabled in the protocol, or if a key has been set up to count as an activity. If not, then this variable will always be True.

Note that this event is not available for use in new procedures; see Built-in variables for more details.

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Animal is frozen and Freezing score - These are only available if the protocol is set up to detect freezing. If not, then the Animal is frozen variable will always be False, and the Freezing score will always be 0.

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Head Distance from Zone, Head distance from point, Is Oriented Towards Zone etc. rely on tracking of the animal's head. If head tracking is turned off in the protocol, then these variables will always return False (or #N/A for numerical values).

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Animal is in zone, Distance from zone, No. zone visits are only valid if the zone specified is not an Investigation zone.

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Animal is investigating zone and No. zone investigations are only valid if the zone specified is an Investigation zone.

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Distance from zone and Is Oriented towards zone are only valid if the zone specified is not a Hidden zone. Hidden zones are by definition invisible, so ANY-maze does not know where the zone is in order to determine these values.

ANY-maze help topic T0537