Can this be done with arrays...?

[KeithW]

Greetings,

I was wondering if it is possible to take a table with say 20 fields and map an array against the table so that when you have selected a record and say the array is called MyArray that you could access the fields by referencing the array subscripts such as...

MyArray(1) = field 1
MyArray(2) = field 2
.
.
etc....?

Regards,
Keith

[Tim Kiebert]

Keith, I think this should work

dim vFieldcount as n = 0
delete MyArray
tbl = table.open("MyTable")
vFieldcount = tbl.fields_get()
dim MyArray[vFieldcount] as C  ' square brackets required in version 6 and above

'Some record finding code

for i = 1 TO vFieldcount
    fld = tbl.field_get(i)
    MyArray[i] = fld.value_get() 
next i
tbl.close()

[Tom Cone Jr]

Keith, I think you're on the right track, but it's apt to be a bit more complicated. Since the array that's defined consists of character data types, your approach assumes all the table fields are also character data types. Keith may have numerics, dates, logicals, and memo's. There's an example in the help file discussion of <field>.value_get() that writes field values to the trace window. That example illustrates how you determine a field's data type, and then convert it to character data. This kind of approach could be used to populate an array of character data type elements.

-- tom

[Finian Lennon]

Don't forget

<Array>.initialize_from_table()

Which can take an order and filter in its arguments.

[csda1]

Arrays can be multidimensional, allowing for element [i] to have values for all fields (with the elements as a name, but you can also address them numerically I believe)

On the other hand, this is more a "collections", which you could look at. It all depends what the end purpose is.

The enum methods allow you to step through the various indexes of the collections and arrays.

[KeithW]

Keith, I think you're on the right track, but it's apt to be a bit more complicated. Since the array that's defined consists of character data types, your approach assumes all the table fields are also character data types. Keith may have numerics, dates, logicals, and memo's. There's an example in the help file discussion of <field>.value_get() that writes field values to the trace window. That example illustrates how you determine a field's data type, and then convert it to character data. This kind of approach could be used to populate an array of character data type elements.

-- tom

Tom,

Thanx for pointing this out. In this case I was thinking about representing everything as a "Character" for ease of use, in this case only, I'm sure. The fact that this has to be accounted for is something that I MUST keep in mind and I'm glad you pointed this issue out for me.

Thanx,
Keith