Help with arrays

[PitBullBlonde]

Hi all,

This may be a dumb question - but hey, I'm a blonde and a newbie here. I am pulling txt files into an array, but at present I'm running a routine to count the lines in a file before I pull it into an array (and the line count is actually more than the actual field elements so I'm creating an array that's too big at present). This is because I don't know how else to figure out the number of items that will be in the array when I declare it. There must be a function or something I'm missing...

Any and all suggestions greatly appreciated...

[this-is-me]

Array[0] is usually the array size and ubound($array) will give you the array size plus 1

[ezzetabi]

Do you want to put your text in array using the @crlf as delimeters?

If so you can just do that:

$text = FileRead('filename.txt',GetFileSize('Filename.txt'))
$text = StringReplace($text,@crlf,@lf)
$text = StringSplit($text,@lf)

So every position of the $text array will contain a line and the position [0] ( $line[0] ) the number of lines.

[ioliver]

@PitBull: Do you want each line in the text file to be an element in the Array?

If so, Read each line of the text file:

$my_var = FileReadLine(C:\Filename.txt, LineNumber)

$my_var1 = $my_var1 & "/" & $my_var

Put that in a loop to read each line and combine into one variable ($my_var1)

Then Split the Variable into an Array:

$my_array = StringSplit($my_var1, "/")

No need to Dim the Array ahead of time.

Hope this helps, sorry if it dosen't,

Ian

[Valik]

Array[0] is usually the array size and ubound($array) will give you the array size plus 1

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No, that's only when using StringSplit(). UBound() always returns the size of the array. The last element will always be at UBound()-1 (Since indexing starts at zero). StringSplit() happens to put the number of elements as element[0] as a convience. This doesn't mean all arrays will automagically have the same format (If this wasn't what you were implying in your post, then it was worded incorrectly as it sure sounded that way, because nobody mentioned StringSplit()).

[this-is-me]

That is why I said Array[0] is USUALLY the size and said that

ubound($array) will give you the array size plus 1

[ezzetabi]

This is the point this-is-me.. The size IS unbound($array), not unbound($array) - 1.

The array is indexed from 0, so the last element is unbound($array) - 1, but the size is indeed unbound($array), as Valik explained.

[tuape]

@ezzetabi: There is no unbound and nobody said size would be UBound()-1.

As you have said so many times: read the manual

Edited September 1, 2004 by tuape

[this-is-me]

Sorry, I meant array's last item + 1. I talk to (no offense) laymen every day and that is the easiest way to explain it.

Edited September 1, 2004 by this-is-me

[Nutster]

$Array[0] can contain any information $Var could contain. StringSplit puts the number of elements it creates in there, but it could be anything. UBound is much more reliable as far as checking how large an array is. For an array with only one dimension, the function returns the number of elements in the array and the last element is that number, minus one, because arrays start numbering at 0, not 1.

Back to the original question:

You can use the ReDim keyword to change the size of the array on the fly.

Dim $LineCount=0; Number of lines read
Dim $LineText[99]; Lines of the file.  Make it big enough to handle a good sized text file.
Dim $fn; Function Handle
Dim $Text ; Current line from the file.

$fn = FileOpen("My File.txt", 0)
While 1
     $Text = FileReadLine($fn)
     If @Error <> 0 Then ExitLoop
     If UBound($LineText) <= $LineCount Then ReDim $LineText[$LineCount+99]; Add a whole bunch of lines a few times, rather than a few lines lots of times.
     $LineText[$LineCount]=$Text
     $LineCount = $LineCount +1 
Wend
If $LineCount < 2 Then
     ReDim $LineText[1]
Else
     ReDim $LineText[$LineCount]
Endif

Edited September 1, 2004 by Nutster

[PitBullBlonde]

Wow! I really got it all - I SO appreciate you guys taking the time to discuss this and work it out. This is going to be a big help in my automating of our help system - I can now pull a list of records generated by our applications, into Help & Manual, adding it to our keyword index - something I would be manualy copying and pasting adnauseam for every single topic, every application...

Hey, you guys have done such great work, I'm sending another one at ya!