deleting items from object while processing each item

[lonewolf217]

Forgive the title, but i wasn't sure how to explain my problem simply.

Basically I have an object containing a list of many items. I am parsing it like

for $item in $object

;do something

;if some condition matches, delete item

next

the problem that i am having with this is probably a fairly obvious one, but the solution escapes me at the moment.

It seems that when I delete an item in the list, it will shift the rest of the items in the $object up on position, so when the Next condition is hit, it is actually skipping over one object to get to the next one in the list.

for example

$object is an array of numbers [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]

in my oversimplified code

for $item in $object

if $item == 2 then delete $item

next

the way this seems to work is that it will process $item == 2, then delete "2". then the next number it will process is actually 4

Is this actually the way it is behaving or could I have another bug in my code?

[zorphnog]

Depends on what kind of object you're using. If its just an array, then you can use a For..To loop instead like so:

For $i=0 To Ubound($aMyarray)-1
     If $aMyarray[$i] = 2 Then
          _ArrayDelete($aMyarray, $i)
          $i -= 1
     EndIf
Next

[lonewolf217]

unfortunetly the size of the array is dynamic, and I suppose that im not actually using an array at all, I am using an object with a lot of members

the jist of what I am doing is processing an Exchange Mailbox, and the object I am working on is the list of all messages in the folder

for each folder/subfolder I process each message and check for a certain message class, if it exists I delete the message

What I am seeing in my code right now is that if I have multiple of the same message class in a row it is skipping them

I had tried hard coding the value of the count for each folder but that got really messy and I was hoping to avoid it

Edited May 28, 2008 by lonewolf217

[lonewolf217]

is there a way that I can get the numeric value of the position in the object I am in ? perhaps then i can lower the value by 1 when i delete a message

[SkinnyWhiteGuy]

To do it simpler than how it is working out now, instead of deleting them with this run, just append a list of the names of the messages to delete, preferably to an array. Then, loop through the array, deleting matching messages.

[lonewolf217]

Ive tried the latest suggestion by saving a list of entry ids in an array and then going back and trying to load and delete them later but it isn't working out yet so I am back to the original problem.

here is a code snippet of one of my functions if someone can take a look and possibly let me know my mistake

CODE

Func processFolders($folders)

for $folder in $folders

If $folder.Items.count <> 0 Then

for $message in $folder.Items

If $message.MessageClass == "IPM.Note.Stub" Then

$message.Delete

EndIf

Next

EndIf

If $folder.Folders.count <> 0 Then

processFolders($folder.Folders)

EndIf

Next

EndFunc

I am using the Redemption libraries for this code. $folder is the folder object, $Folder.Items is an object containing all the messages in the folder.

I am running this over and over and cannot figure out why it is skipping messages. If i have 10 messages in my Inbox that apply to the MessageClass rule, for some reason only 5 of them are getting deleted. Any help is appreciated.

Edit: sorry about the code snippet formatting, can't figure out how to get the indentation to work

Edited May 29, 2008 by lonewolf217

[zorphnog]

Try this:

#include <Array.au3>

Func processFolders($folders)
    Local $aDeleteFolders[1] = [0]
    for $folder in $folders
        If $folder.Items.count <> 0 Then
            for $message in $folder.Items
                If $message.MessageClass == "IPM.Note.Stub" Then
                    _ArrayAdd($aDeleteFolders, $message)
                    $aDeleteFolders[0] += 1
                EndIf
            Next
        EndIf
        For $i=1 To $aDeleteFolders[0]
            For $message In $folder.Items
                If $message = $aDeleteFolders[$i] Then
                    $message.Delete
                    ExitLoop
                EndIf
            Next
        Next
        ReDim $aDeleteFolders[1]
        $aDeleteFolders[0] = 0
        If $folder.Folders.count <> 0 Then
            processFolders($folder.Folders)
        EndIf
    Next
EndFunc

[lonewolf217]

I finally found some information on google and it does seem that since i am modifying the number of items in the object it will screw up the count. Once i changed my for loop to this

for $i = $folder.Items.count To 1 Step -1

it works just fine.

Thanks for the help though!

[JRowe]

Check out the _Array UDF, in the UDF help file in your main AutoIt folder. That should give you all the functionality you need.