Associative Arrays
In computer science, an associative array, map, symbol table, or dictionary is an abstract data type composed of a collection of (key, value) pairs, such that each possible key appears at most once in the collection.
An associative array differs from a “normal” array in one major way: rather than being indexed numerically (i.e. 0, 1, 2, 3, …), it is indexed by a key, or a language-like word.
A Scripting.Dictionary is a standard object provided by the Microsoft ScripTing Runtime (scrrun.dll) dependency and is commonly used in VBScript, a reference to which needs to be added in order to create an object in your AutoIt project.
A dictionary object example by MHz
Global $vKey, $sItem, $sMsg, $oDictionary
; Create dictionary object
$oDictionary = ObjCreate("Scripting.Dictionary")
If @error Then
MsgBox(0, '', 'Error creating the dictionary object')
Else
; Add keys with items
$oDictionary.Add ("One", "Same" )
$oDictionary.Add ("Two", "Car" )
$oDictionary.Add ("Three", "House" )
$oDictionary.Add ("Four", "Boat" )
If $oDictionary.Exists('One') Then
; Display item
MsgBox(0x0, 'Item One', $oDictionary.Item('One'), 2)
; Set an item
$oDictionary.Item('One') = 'Changed'
; Display item
MsgBox(0x20, 'Did Item One Change?', $oDictionary.Item('One'), 3)
; Remove key
$oDictionary.Remove('One')
;
$oDictionary.Key ('Two') = 'Bike'
EndIf
Sleep(1000)
; Store items into a variable
For $vKey In $oDictionary
$sItem &= $oDictionary.Item($vKey) & @CRLF
Next
; Display items
MsgBox(0x0, 'Items Count: ' & $oDictionary.Count, $sItem, 3)
; Add items into an array
$aItems = $oDictionary.Items
; Display items in the array
For $i = 0 To $oDictionary.Count -1
MsgBox(0x0, 'Items [ ' & $i & ' ]', $aItems[$i], 2)
Next
Sleep(1000)
; Add keys into an array
$aKeys = $oDictionary.Keys
; Display keys in the array
For $i = 0 To $oDictionary.Count -1
MsgBox(0x0, 'Keys [ ' & $i & ' ]', $aKeys[$i], 2)
Next
EndIf