Hi,
It is true that Alan has already answered this question but I was misled because the file that I compiled without problem is this one, even leaving pair z[ ] (I can think that it is because of this instruction   z := point 3.6 of p ;)

\starttext
\startMPpage[offset=2pt]
     path p, q, r, b ; pair z ;
     p := unitsquare scaled 4cm ;
     z := point 3.6 of p ;
     q := z--urcorner p ;
     r := z--urcorner p-- reverse bottomboundary p--cycle ;
     b := reverse bottomboundary p ;
     %r := q -- reverse bottomboundary p -- cycle ; definition of Hans
     draw b--q withpen pencircle scaled 1mm withcolor red ;
     draw p ;
     draw r numberstriped (.25,10,5) withcolor magenta ;
     label.llft("B", p) ;
     label.lrt("C", p) ;
     label.ulft("A", p) ;
     label.urt("D", p) ;
     label.lft("M", p) ;
\stopMPpage
\startMPpage[offset=2pt]
  defaultfont := "texgyrepagella-regular*default" ;
  defaultscale :=0.8 ;
  path p, q, r, b ; pair z[];
  p  := unitsquare xyscaled (9cm,5cm) ;
  z[0] = (2cm,0cm) ;
  z[1] = (2cm,2cm) ;
  z[2] = (0cm,2cm) ;
  q := llcorner p--z[0]--z[1]--z[2]--cycle ;
  r := unitsquare xyscaled (7cm,3cm) shifted(2cm,2cm) ;
  b := z[2]--z[1]--ulcorner r--urcorner p--lrcorner r--z[1]--z[0]--llcorner p--cycle ;
  draw p ;
  draw b numberstriped (.25,15,5) withcolor magenta ;
  label.llft("A", p) ;
  label.lrt("D", p) ;
  label.ulft("C", p) ;
  label.urt("B", p) ;
  label.lft("M", z[2]) ;
  label.ulft("N", z[1]) ;
  label.bot("P", z[0]) ;
  label.top("J", ulcorner r) ;
  label.rt("I", lrcorner r) ;
  label.bot(btex $x$ etex,(llcorner p+z[0])/2);
  label.lft(btex $x$ etex,(llcorner p+z[2])/2);
\stopMPpage
  
\stoptext

Le jeu. 3 janv. 2019 à 07:12, Alan Braslau <braslau.list@comcast.net> a écrit :
On Thu, 3 Jan 2019 16:22:06 +1300 (UTC)
Henri Menke <henrimenke@gmail.com> wrote:

> z is a MetaPost intrinsic, something along the lines of
>
>     vardef z@#=(x@#,y@#) enddef;
>
> so you can't use the same name for a pair.  Actually you can simply
> delete the declaration
>
>    pair z[];

I had already told Fabrice this a couple of days ago...

Alan
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