On 15 Mar 2007, at 04:53, Mark Wieder wrote:
Richard-
Wednesday, March 14, 2007, 8:54:34 AM, you wrote:
So while it's true that Rev's arrays are associative rather than
numerically indexed (and a request has been submitted to make that
more
self-evident in the docs), it's not like Rev invented some novel
form of
array. As the 800,000 hits at that link show, associative arrays
are a
common feature of a great many languages.
Aw, that's nothin' - I got 2,360,000 hits from Google looking up
Hashtable, which is another way of saying "associative arrray".
Yes, it's really all down to implementation. For instance SNOBOL4/
SPITBOL implements Both Arrays and Associative Arrays (called tables)
as so:
Both "[]" and "<>" can be used to hold the array index or table key.
By convention "[]" is used for Arrays and "<>" is used for tables.
A Table (Associative Array) is setup as so:
myTable = table(100,50)
Which creates a table with 100 pre-allocated entries and when this is
full, will extend the table by 50 entries.
A table is accessed as so:
myValue = myTable<"key">
myTable<"key"> = myValue
An Array (Bounded Index Array) is setup as so:
myArray = array("-100:100,200:900")
Which creates a 2D array with indexes 200 entries in X (addressed as
-100 to +100) and 700 entries in Y (addresses as +200 to +900).
An Array is accessed as so:
myValue = myArray[-7,489)
myArray[-7,489) = myValue
If an attempt is made to access an out of bounds item a run-time
error occurs (an exception is thrown).
There are functions to convert between Arrays and Tables, such as:
myArray = convert(myTable,"array") Which creates a 2D array from
myTable
myTable = convert(myArray,"table") Which creates a Table from the
first two dimensions of an array.
There are more specialized functions too, such as:
myArrayA = sort(myArrayB,index) Which sorts an array into another
array using the dimension specified by index as the sort field.
myArray = sort(myTable,index) Which sorts a table into an array using
either the key or the data field as the sort field.
This allows both data types to co-exist and work together and believe
me it's Super-Powerful!
If Index type arrays were implemented in RunRev, I'm not sure how the
syntax would work, how would the compiler/interpreter know that:
myArray[1,2] didn't mean key "1,2" or vice versa, also how would the
bounds of the array be checked?
All the Best
Dave
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