arrays as custom properties or custom property sets

[Alex Rice]

On Wednesday, August 27, 2003, at 10:47  AM, rand valentine wrote:

>  i have been reading old posts to the list to try and figure out as 
> much as
> I can about using custom properties and custom property sets to store 
> arrays
> of data. But there is some indeterminancy in the list posts, as one 
> might
> expect, since they almost always address very specific needs. So, could
> someone knowledgeable clarify for me how exactly one differentially 
> loads
> (and accesses) an array as a custom property versus a custom property 
> set? I
> want to have about 6 arrays, all as distinct custom properties, but in 
> the
> same set. My reason for doing things this way is simple -- if I make 
> each
> array a differnt custom property set, don't i always have to be 
> setting the
> custom property set to the appropriate one in order to access that 
> array's
> data? Thanks so much.

Rand, you have to make 6 custom property sets. Each set is an array. It 
is true you can set a particular set like

set the customPropertySet of this stack to "set1"
get the uWhatever of this stack --  from the current set

However, there is a more convenient syntax you can use to get and set 
values using an array notation that does not require you to set the 
customPropertySet first:

set the set1[value] of this stack to something -- into set 1
get the setx[value] of this stack -- from set x
get the sety[value] of this stack --- from set y

sometimes it is convenient to go ahead and set the customProperty set 
if you are going to be accessing the set a lot. Also then you can use 
the customKeys to get the array keys without making a copy of the array.

Hope this helps a little,


Alex Rice, Software Developer
Architectural Research Consultants, Inc.
http://ARCplanning.com