array info request

[Jan Schenkel]

--- keith <keith at vortex.co.uk> wrote:
> Okay, in my state of blissful ignorance I had
> assumed that arrays 
> were effectively arranged in a spreadsheet-like
> manner. The array 
> name is the spreadsheet (in this way of thinking),
> the keys are like 
> a set of column headings, and the elements are the
> bits of data in 
> each cell. I hope I'm not too off-target here! <g>
> Anyway, an example of data in this layout, assuming
> it isn't just bonkers:
> 
> Record   Title   ISBN   Author   Editor  Comments
> 1        ABC	 123	Tim	 Tom     Lots of blahblah...
> 2        House   345    Mick     Mark    Different
> blahblah...
> 
> Can I extract every record number and title in order
> to search for 
> just titles? (I'm imagining that I'd need to know
> which record ID a 
> found item was in to be able to pull the full
> record.)
> 

You can store your data into an array (or if you want
to sve it more permanently, use a custompropertyset)
and retrieve the data as:
--
  put "ABC" into tBooksArray["1,title"]
  put "123" into tBooksArray["2,ISBN"]
--

Here's a trick to get a list of all the ID's:
--
  put the keys of tBooksArray into tKeys
  ## limit the keys to those that link to "title"
  filter tKeys with "*,title"
  ## now extract the ID's for each title
  repeat for each line tKey in tKeys
    put item 1 of tKey & return after tIDList
  end repeat
  ## now do whatever you want with the ID list
--

> 
> The rough idea in my head right now is to store the
> data in an array 
> in a project:
> 
> * People read it, showing one record at a time by
> either clicking 
> through sequentially or by searching for specific
> things. The 
> elements from that record are retrieved from the
> array and put into 
> the right fields as each record is shown.
> 
> * If someone wants to edit a record a flag is set in
> its part of the 
> array so others can't do the same to that record.
> When editing is 
> done, the different fields are written back to their
> respective 
> elements in the array.
> 
> * New records are made by writing new 'lines' in the
> array. They are 
> then available for others to come across as they
> browse the data 
> collection.
> 
> In the opinion of those that have tried this sort of
> thing and/or 
> worked with arrays, is this a moderately sensible
> approach?
> 
> the ever-learning k
> 

This is a sensible approach, though for storing the
data, I suggest either using custom properties, ro
saving the data into an SQL database.

The latter will definitely help if you want to apply
this in a multi-user situation. Then your editor
stacks can leave the central storage up to the
database.

Hope this helped,

Jan Schenkel.

Quartam - Tools for Revolution
<http://www.quartam.com>

=====
"As we grow older, we grow both wiser and more foolish at the same time."  (La Rochefoucauld)

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