On Mar 24, 2007, at 2:58 PM, Dr Gerard Hammond wrote:
> I couldn't agree more John. The speed of dictionaries is great but
> the syntax is awfully confusing.
>
> I am forever going back to working version of dictionary code to copy
> and paste.
> For some reason, the current syntax just never makes sense to me.
>
> Maybe we should fix this ourselves, using the 'extends' keyword to
> modify the dictionary object syntax. (It might even show us why the
> syntax is the way it is?)
A simple wrapping of a dictionary into a "tuple" can be pretty quick
and painless
1) create a new class called Tuple
2) add a private property as Dictionary (call it mProperties)
3) add a Constructor with this code
mProperties = new Dictionary
4) define the operator_lookup method that takes a string parameter
called name and returns a variant with this code
operator_lookup(name as string) as variant
if mProperties.hasKey(name) then
return mProperties.value(name)
else
return "" // that return 0 as assignment to a string
will give "0"
end if
5) add a method for adding values. This is also an operator_lookup
method but ASSIGNS a variant
operator_lookup(name as string, assigns v as variant)
mProperties.value(name) = v
At this point in your code you can do
dim t as tuple
t = new Tuple
t.i = 123
t.s = "456"
dim i as integer
dim s as string
i = t.i
s = t.s
Of course you could also do
s = t.i
i = t.s
And you would get whatever coercions from one type to another that
variants already perform
IF there were some way to provide type safety that would be good :)
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