Best array population & access optimization

[Dar Scott]

On Friday, June 20, 2003, at 02:19 PM, Mark Brownell wrote:

>   put "-785314906, -1730169428, 805139163, -803545161, -1193168915," 
> into stringX
>
>   set itemDelimiter to ","
>
>   repeat with i = 1 to 5
>     put item i of stringX into zap
>     -- put value(zap) into myList[ i ]-- test one
>     put zap into myList[ i ] -- test two & three
>   end repeat
>
>   -- put myList[1] -- test 1 & 2
>
>   put myList[1] + 1 -- test three
>
> end mouseUp
>
>    test one  -- yields -785314906
>    test two  -- yields -785314906 ... I expected a string "-785314906"
>    test three -- yields  -785314905

In many cases you will not need to know whether Revolution uses string 
numerals or an internal form of the number.

The above test two and three will put numeral strings into the arrays.  
If you find that the encryption box is more efficient with internal 
numbers in the array, then put (zap+0) into myList[i].  As you use the 
numbers and replace them with calculated values, they will become and 
stay the faster internal form.  Unless you do some weird magic, the key 
is always a numeral.

All results are strings once they get to the message box.  The property 
numberFormat is used to convert.  Your numbers are hardly affected.  
The quote marks will not show up on strings unless you put them in the 
strings.

Because the Blowfish S-boxes have only 256 entries, you might see if 
using numToChar(i) as the key gives you any speed advantage.  Also, 
since Blowfish uses 32-bit numbers, you might consider extracting four 
char sets using a char chunk expression from a string instead of an 
array and then use binaryEncode/binaryDecode.

Dar Scott