Interesting idea. Rolf. Are you aware of Jmol's recently added .. notation?
x = {"a": {"1": ["x", "y", "z"], "2": ["I", "II"]}}
print x
print x..a
print x..a..1
print x..a..1..2
Does that satisfy your needs? It is only for regular arrays or associative
arrays with simple keys. You can't do this:
print x.."testing here"
for that you still need
print x["testing here"]
(Just as in JavaScript.)
Personally, I would not like to try to build Perl-like syntax into Jmol.
Overall it is very unlike C++ or Java or JavaScript, and I've tried to keep
as close to those as possible. In Perl I believe the -> notation is for *array
references:*
my @array = (1, 2, 3, 'four');
my $reference = \@array;
print $reference->[0];
not actual array names, right? You can't do this:
my @array = (1, 2, 3, 'four');
print $array->[0];
right? So I would prefer not to add that confusion to the mix.
Ambiguity of ranges: It's not that there is any ambiguity. I assure you
that is not the case. But Jmol's notation is a bit idiosyncratic, I admit.
The fact that the first model in a file was always "1" led me to develop 1
as the base for array elements. Was it a good choice? Maybe not. But that's
what we have. And the fact that we often want the last model suggested then
that [0] could mean "the last" rather than "the first". And so we have
ranges such as a[3][-3]. It's not ambiguous. But it is multipurpose. So, as
you point out, for associative arrays, a[1][1] is not a range. (What would
a "range" in an associative array mean, after all.) It must be that "1" is
a key in a, and that key refers to either another associative array with a
"1" key or a serial array with at least one element. (Maybe that's what you
mean by "ambiguous". That's true.)
Hope that helps.
Bob
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