Device attribute syntax from within a device type - revisited

[tgauchat (ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)]

@schettj

How should I be referring to a custom attribute in the device handler itself (or, do I not get to do that?)

Short Answer:
ATTRIBUTES ARE NOT VARIABLES.
They are a completely separate namespace, only updated by Events and only readable by a small set of methods, and, supposedly, a couple of “magic property names” of the Device object (NB: not the Device Type object… Completely different animals.).

Ahem… I apologize for shouting.

I just went through this research for a recent question / response thread. Let me know if you’d like to chat about it.

Honestly, I was just as lost before I thought about it and wrote about it…

Custom Device Attributes and Commands: Subtleties

Thanks, but just to confirm, Duncan: If you want to use an local use, as well as for sharing (i.e., via Event), you can “declare” the Attribute name as a local variable with “def reportASAP”, right? Are these actually the same storage object, or two distinct namespaces (i.e., a local variable, and an Attribute are not really interchangeable but can have overlapping names?) A SmartApp can read the latest value of an a Device’s Attribute (as set by an Event) in a variety of ways, including: State device.currentState(attributeName) (returns an Attribute State Object, includes properties such as <state>.value, etc.). Object device.currentValue(attributeName) (returns the value of the Attribute in its datatype) latest and range variations of State (latestState, statesBetween(...))…