Millisecond Forums » Millisecond Forums » Inquisit 4 » Batch Script Error

Batch Script Error

nonamenick — Sun, 28 Feb 2016 15:48:30 GMT

Hi,

Quick question involving batch element script. I'm combining four scripts (3 surveys and 1 experiment), I did not write the survey scripts, but I do have them in the same folder as the experiment.

<batch>
/ file="Questionnaire A Blocks.iqx"
/ file="Questionnaire B Blocks.iqx"
/ file="Questionnaire C Blocks.iqx"
/ file="experiment 7.iqx"
</batch>

When trying to run it I am getting this error...

"Could not find a valid encoding for: '/Users/Nick/Documents/Research Work/Questionnaire A Blocks.iqx'."

All the other scripts are working. Its just this script.
Any suggestions?

RE: Batch Script Error

Dave — Sun, 28 Feb 2016 15:48:30 GMT

To provide some background: The encoding of "legacy" Inquisit 3 (and below) *.exp files and the newer Inquisit 4 (and above) *.iqx files is different. *.exp are encoded according to the system's code page (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page ) which is what describes the character set that's used by the file. *.iqx files, on the other hand, are Unicode-encoded (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode , specifically UTF-8).

> The original file was .exp and I had changed it to .iqx. I changed it back to .exp and it works fine.

The error you observed occurred because the *.iqx extension made Inquisit expect an UTF-8 encoded file, while the file actually used a different (code page based) character set / character encoding. This doesn't necessarily happen with every *.exp whose extension has been changed to *.iqx. It ultimately depends on the characters used throughout the respective file and whether their encoding matches the encoding those characters *would have* under UTF-8 or not.

To convert a legacy *.exp to *.iqx properly, open the *.exp file in Inquisit 4 Lab (or above) and select File -> Save As... and pick "Inquisit 4/5 script (*.iqx)" as type.

Hope this clarifies.

RE: Batch Script Error

nonamenick — Sun, 28 Feb 2016 09:30:11 GMT

The original file was .exp and I had changed it to .iqx. I changed it back to .exp and it works fine. It is confusing that when I changed the other two files from .exp to .iqx that there was no problem. Anyways, the problem seems to be fixed now.

Thanks.

RE: Batch Script Error

Dave — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 10:06:15 GMT

The error means the encoding of the file "Questionnaire A Blocks.iqx" is botched -- Inquisit doesn't know how to read it. This can happen if you edit scripts with other applications, i.e., not Inquisit Lab. If the file is salvageable, you may be able to open it in a simple text editor (e.g. Notepad under Windows). From there, save the file with UTF-8 as the encoding.

If you can't get this to work yourself, attach the file to this thread (click +Insert -> Add File...) and I'll take a look at it.