Zugg Software :: View topic - [2.18] Using the syntax "dbvar.key" doesn't work if key is a number

Adept Joined: 04 Feb 2005 Posts: 246

Make a db variable with the package editor: a=b|1=2|4=5

Now do:

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5187

Actually this is an old shortcut for working with string lists. Your line "#SH @xxx.1" should display "a=b", if it doesn't then that is a bug in this shortcut.

I seem to recall there is one tiny mention to this particular shortcut in the documentation, but I can't for the life of me find it. I know it was in there when I worked on the zMud help, and because I always thought this shortcut added confusion I never duplicated whatever sentence mentioned it all over the various entries for working with lists.

Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 10:55 pm

Vijilante is correct. You cannot use the simple @var.key syntax if key is a number. If you need to use numeric keys in a database variable, use %db(@var,1) to access it.

Adept Joined: 04 Feb 2005 Posts: 246

It doesn't display "a=b", just the "b", so that seems to be a bug at least. I guess there are two ways to think of it:

1) db vars are to be thought of as structs (in C terminology). Thus the member reference ".key" is a literal string that the programmer controls, and restricting to strings is OK
2) db vars are to thought of as associative arrays, and var.key is shortcut syntax, in which case you might not know what is being used as keys.

Obviously, 1 is more true. In fact, I think you can't use variables for keys anyways (though, you can use %n, which is how I caught it).

If I were to rate the usefulness of being able to have simpler syntax for associative arrays vs. losing the shortcut for stringlists, I'd probably take the former.

However, maybe a later enhancement might be to allow for syntax: @dbvar.{key} where key can be literal, a number, or a variable reference.

Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 12:11 am

You can actually use @{dbvar.@var} to dynamically reference variables.

I'd think of @var.key as a shortcut syntax only applicable when the key is a string, sort of like the Lua syntax var.key as opposed to var["key"] which can use anything as keys. %db is the equivalent of the latter.