Yet another Newbie Question

Stephen Barncard stephenREVOLUTION at barncard.com
Tue Apr 3 15:17:48 EDT 2007


a data stack using custom properties and property sets is one of the 
best ways to store arrays in Rev (and data in general).

You can also put data inside the data using text lists inside a 
custom property. This of course puts stricter limits on what goes 
into certain places.

key1 <tab> data <tab> data2 <tab> data3 <otherDelim> <subData>
key2 <tab> data <tab> data2 <otherDelim> <subData>  <tab> data3
key3 <tab> data <tab> data2 <tab> data3

an entire array of datasets can be punched into or retrieved from a 
stack in one line of code. Loop through the arrays in a script to 
copy over, or use the clone command.

lots of ways to accomplish the tasks.

In MacOS X the data could live a stack inside a package, just outside 
the app or a stack in a special folder that is designated in the OS. 
(see specialfolderpath in the docs)

Text files work for certain data situations like listings that need 
to be occasionally manipulated by the user, but have no structure, 
XML is searchable and structured, but bulky - large files. They both 
need to be loaded in from disk.

With custom properties, if you know generally where some of your data 
is, searching can be very fast.  Also access time is very fast, 
almost as fast as variables, because it's all held in ram.



>Hi there,
>so I've a couple of questions (which may be silly)
>
>1) If I create version 1 of an application which saves data as a 
>stack - then create version 2 which adds functionality (but probably 
>doesn't change the data format) how do I get the stack data from 
>version 1 into the newly installed version 2?
>
>2) It seems that a good idea is to create a Library and Data Manager 
>stack, so now I'm wondering is it 'better' to push all data to disk, 
>as say xml or text, then reload it all into an array in the Data 
>Manager and then step through the array and perform all other 
>actions on the array - if you like - a kind of abstraction? which 
>leads me to the question - is there the concept of a record 
>structure as in c/c++ or is it best to use a 2 dimensional array?
>
>Sorry once again if this is all obvious.
>
>Cheers
>Si.
>
>====
>Simon Harper

-- 


stephen barncard
s a n  f r a n c i s c o
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