Bug in the "algebra" question type

Bug in the "algebra" question type

by Jean-Michel Védrine -
Number of replies: 5

Hello to all,

Whaou it has been years since I last came on this website or looked at anything related to Moodle. And I don't really know why I do this.

In fact I know : I hate when I don't understand something wink

Camille Carlier has reported a nasty bug : when an algebra question is included in a quiz the statistics page for the quiz is blank.

The algebra question type is a very old one, originally made by Roger Moore, and in my opinion largely outdated : people interested in maths should rather look at Stack or formulas questions, but I know people still use it.

And it annoy me when something I have done is breaking the whole quiz engine !

So this morning I decided to look at it. It was not easy, as I didn't had anything related to programming installed on my computer now . 

I had to install Wamp then Moodle, create a test site, add some users, but once debugging was activated, finding the problem was easy.

So I decided to commit a fix to my github (only 2 lines change) and to update the parser created by Roger to use PHP7 constructors so that I don't get lots of deprecated notices when debugging is on. 

What puzzle me is that in fact the problem was probably here since I ported this question type for Moodle 2.2 or 2.3, and nobody has reported it before

Maybe people are not found of statistics after all ?

I will now try to add the new version to the plugin directory (I don't know if I still have the rights to do that ?)

It's rather funny that my come back is for one of the plugins I was caring the less, but after finding the bug it would have been stupid not to release a new version. 

And of course let me wish to all Moodle users a merry Christmas and a happy new year 2018.

Average of ratings: Useful (6)
In reply to Jean-Michel Védrine

Re: Bug in the "algebra" question type

by Mary Cooch -
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Thankyou for this Jean-Michel and a very Happy Christmas and New Year to you toosmile

In reply to Jean-Michel Védrine

Re: Bug in the "algebra" question type

by Tim Hunt -
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Lovely to hear from you again Jean-Michel. I hope you are having a great time away from Moodle. Feel free to drop by and say hello any time.

In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Bug in the "algebra" question type

by Jean-Michel Védrine -

Thanks a lot Tim,

I wish to all Moodle users and especially to you, when the time will come, to enjoy their retirement as much as I do.

If you ever come to Montpellier, don't hesitate to drop a mail (my address at univ-st-etienne.fr is no more valid but I think you have the other ones)

It would be wonderful if we can meet in real life at last ! Of course Summer is the perfect time for that but weather is fine nearly all the time except of course during "episodes Cevenols" 

I don't know what I will do now. Maybe when I have some free time it would be good to do some Moodle coding again ?

Working with you was both exciting and rewarding. 

My question types seems to be working (apart  javascript for the formulas question type) with the last Moodle version. So they would need very little work I think.

Upgrading mod_qcreate would be a lot more work it seems (in fact I already gave it a try, if you look at my github master branch) and I don't know if I will find the time to maintain an activity module on the long term. 

But at the same time abandoning this plugin was my greatest regret along these years.



In reply to Jean-Michel Védrine

Re: Bug in the "algebra" question type

by Joseph Rézeau -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Hello Jean-Michel! Good to hear from you! Happy New year 2018 to you --- and to all the old moodlers.smile