over my years as a TI-basic programmer, i keep looking at the String►Equ( command and never finding a use for it. it seems that what it does can be accomplished with only a → command. am I right? or am I missing something
It can be used for storing an expression in a string (say, from :Input Str1) and getting a numerical result. I never used it because it can be buggy, at least on my classic TI-83.
Loganb128 wrote:
over my years as a TI-basic programmer, i keep looking at the String►Equ( command and never finding a use for it. it seems that what it does can be accomplished with only a → command. am I right? or am I missing something


You aren't missing anything that I am aware of, except that Sring>Equ( does not modify the value of Ans. http://tibasicdev.wikidot.com/string-equ
Using → to store to an equation doesn't modify Ans either. You can tell this because when run on the homescreen it outputs "Done" rather than the value.
Are equations even a valid var type for Ans?
CVSoft wrote:
Are equations even a valid var type for Ans?


I just tested it, and Str1->Y1 does not modify the value of Ans either. It simply results in Done being printed.
CVSoft wrote:
Are equations even a valid var type for Ans?

The equations themselves are not unless they are stored in strings
Honestly, I've yet to see a situation where such a command would be useful. At first, I thought it might be possible that it is a residual token, for example, if it used to be that

Code:
"X^2->Y1

was not valid syntax, however, this does not seem to be the case. I tried it on a ti-81 manufactured in June 1990, which is one of the earliest graphing calculators produced by ti, and it works fine. This means that it never had a use, so unlike some tokens like IS>( and DS<(, which used to have uses and are now obsolete, but are still included for backward compatibility, String>Equ() never had a use. I think the String>Equ() token was introduced in 1992 with the release of the ti-82. Of course, this doesn't make any sense because there was already an arguably simpler way to do it.
I also took the time to measure the speed of both, and it turns out String>Equ( is actually about 1.592 times slower than Strn->Yn to execute (presumably because it has to modify Ans), as well as taking 2 extra bytes in the program. Therefore, unless for some reason, you absolutely want to modify Ans at the same time (I can't think of any situation where that would be useful), there is absolutely no use for this token, and I would actually advise against using it, because it is slower and bigger.

This actually reminds me of an old post I made a couple years ago concerning useless tokens. Here is a link to that topic, where String>Equ() was mentioned.
  
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