Capabilities: RTF editing, Graphs, flat-file database

[Sarah Reichelt]

Yes, you could certainly use a persistent variable, either global or 
script local. The advantage of a custom property is that it can be 
saved as part of the stack and it can be accessed by any object without 
declaration. It is really a matter of personal preference - I tend to 
use custom properties for important data and globals or script locals 
for anything that can be reset without any great disaster. This just 
keeps the different types of data clear in my mind. There is no right 
or wrong in this case, just various options :-)

Cheers,
Sarah


On 11 Jun 2004, at 1:23 am, Jay Madren wrote:

> Sarah,
>
> Why do you need to use a custom property?  Couldn't you just do it all 
> in a
> local or global variable?  I figure you have a reason(s), but I'm not
> experienced enough in RR to know the ramifications of variables versus
> custom properties.
>
> Thanks,
> Jay Madren
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: use-revolution-bounces at lists.runrev.com
> [mailto:use-revolution-bounces at lists.runrev.com]On Behalf Of Sarah
> Reichelt
> Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2004 23:44
> To: Geoff Caplan; How to use Revolution
> Subject: Re: Capabilities: RTF editing, Graphs, flat-file database
>
>
>>>> Another very popular way is to use a single data field with one line
>>>> per record, and each field in the record separated by some 
>>>> delimiter,
>>>> usually tab. The whole field can be loaded into memory allowing very
>>>> fast searching, sorting etc.
>>
>> Sarah, can you point me to the Rev functions you would use for this?
>> Sounds like you are saying that Rev has Awk-like capabilities. This
>> has the merit of simplicity. But with up to 60,000 records, I would
>> have to test the speed and memory issues.
>>
> Supposing your complete data set is stored in a field called "Data" (or
> a text file), when you start your app, set a custom property e.g. set
> the cMyDataSet of this stack to field "Data"
> Now your data is held in memory so it is faster to access.
>
> I am assuming that your data is in a sort of spreadsheet format with
> rows & columns
> e.g. firstname <tab> lastname <tab> phone <tab> email <tab> notes <cr>
>
> How you handle it now really depends on what manipulations you want to
> do.
> To sort:
> put the cMyDataSet of this stack into tempVar
> set the itemdelimiter to tab
> sort lines of tempVar by item 2 of each  -- sorts by lastname
> set the cMyDataSet of this stack to tempVar
>
> To filter:
> put the cMyDataSet of this stack into tempVar
> filter tempVar with "*Smith*"  -- reduces list to only lines containing
> Smith
>
> If you want to set & retrieve data:
> put "Jones" into item 2 of line 65 of tempVar
> put item 3 of line 9999 of the cMyDataSet of this stack into tPhone
>
> If you are doing of lot of line-based access, convert the data set to
> an array using split
> put the cMyDataSet of this stack into tempArray
> split tempArray using cr
>
> Then you can get tempArray[59999] which will be much faster than
> getting line 59999 of tempVar
>
> It is difficult to be more specific without knowing exactly what format
> your data is in and how you want to manipulate it, but hopefully this
> has given you some ideas to start with.
>
> Cheers,
> Sarah
>
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