Search the Community

Associative Array Functions I've seen a couple of UDFs for this on the forum. One of them I quite like. But it's still nearly not as good as this method, IMHO. I don't recall if I discovered the "Scripting.Dictionary" COM object myself or if I got the original base code from somewhere online. I have recently searched the web (and here) hard for any AutoIt references to this, other than my own over the years I've been using this (in ffe, etc..), and I can find nothing, so I dunno. If anyone does, I'd love to give credit where it's due; this is some cute stuff! It could actually be all my own work! lol At any rate, it's too useful to not have posted somewhere at autoitscript.com, so I've put together a wee demo. For those who haven't heard of the COM "Scripting.Dictionary".. If you've ever coded in Perl or PHP (and many other languages), you know how useful associative arrays are. Basically, rather than having to iterate through an array to discover it's values, with an associative array you simply pluck values out by their key "names". I've added a few functions over the years, tweaked and tuned, and this now represent pretty much everything you need to easily work with associative arrays in AutoIt. En-joy! The main selling point of this approach is its simplicity and weight. I mean, look at how much code it takes to work with associative arrays! The demo is bigger than all the functions put together! The other selling point is that we are using Windows' built-in COM object functions which are at least theoretically, fast and robust. I've used it many times without issues, anyhow, here goes.. ; Associative arrays in AutoIt? Hells yeah! ; Initialize your array ... global $oMyError = ObjEvent("AutoIt.Error", "AAError") ; Initialize a COM error handler ; first example, simple. global $simple AAInit($simple) AAAdd($simple, "John", "Baptist") AAAdd($simple, "Mary", "Lady Of The Night") AAAdd($simple, "Trump", "Silly Man-Child") AAList($simple) debug("It is said that Trump is a " & AAGetItem($simple, "Trump") & ".", @ScriptLineNumber);debug debug("") ; slightly more interesting.. $ini_path = "AA_Test.ini" ; Put this prefs section in your ini file.. ; [test] ; foo=foo value ; foo2=foo2 value ; bar=bar value ; bar2=bar2 value global $associative_array AAInit($associative_array) ; We are going to convert this 2D array into a cute associative array where we ; can access the values by simply using their respective key names.. $test_array = IniReadSection($ini_path, "test") for $z = 1 to 2 ; do it twice, to show that the items are *really* there! for $i = 1 to $test_array[0][0] $key_name = $test_array[$i][0] debug("Adding '" & $key_name & "'..");debug ; key already exists in "$associative_array", use the pre-determined value.. if AAExists($associative_array, $key_name) then $this_value = AAGetItem($associative_array, $key_name) debug("key_name ALREADY EXISTS! : =>" & $key_name & "<=" , @ScriptLineNumber);debug else $this_value = $test_array[$i][1] ; store left=right value pair in AA if $this_value then AAAdd($associative_array, $key_name, $this_value) endif endif next next debug(@CRLF & "Array Count: =>" & AACount($associative_array) & "<=" , @ScriptLineNumber);debug AAList($associative_array) debug(@CRLF & "Removing 'foo'..");debug AARemove($associative_array, "foo") debug(@CRLF & "Array Count: =>" & AACount($associative_array) & "<=" , @ScriptLineNumber);debug AAList($associative_array) debug(@CRLF & "Removing 'bar'..");debug AARemove($associative_array, "bar") debug(@CRLF & "Array Count: =>" & AACount($associative_array) & "<=" , @ScriptLineNumber);debug AAList($associative_array) quit() func quit() AAWipe($associative_array) AAWipe($simple) endfunc ;; Begin AA Functions func AAInit(ByRef $dict_obj) $dict_obj = ObjCreate("Scripting.Dictionary") endfunc ; Adds a key and item pair to a Dictionary object.. func AAAdd(ByRef $dict_obj, $key, $val) $dict_obj.Add($key, $val) If @error Then return SetError(1, 1, -1) endfunc ; Removes a key and item pair from a Dictionary object.. func AARemove(ByRef $dict_obj, $key) $dict_obj.Remove($key) If @error Then return SetError(1, 1, -1) endfunc ; Returns true if a specified key exists in the associative array, false if not.. func AAExists(ByRef $dict_obj, $key) return $dict_obj.Exists($key) endfunc ; Returns a value for a specified key name in the associative array.. func AAGetItem(ByRef $dict_obj, $key) return $dict_obj.Item($key) endfunc ; Returns the total number of keys in the array.. func AACount(ByRef $dict_obj) return $dict_obj.Count endfunc ; List all the "Key" > "Item" pairs in the array.. func AAList(ByRef $dict_obj) debug("AAList: =>", @ScriptLineNumber);debug local $k = $dict_obj.Keys ; Get the keys ; local $a = $dict_obj.Items ; Get the items for $i = 0 to AACount($dict_obj) -1 ; Iterate the array debug($k[$i] & " ==> " & AAGetItem($dict_obj, $k[$i])) next endfunc ; Wipe the array, obviously. func AAWipe(ByRef $dict_obj) $dict_obj.RemoveAll() endfunc ; Oh oh! func AAError() Local $err = $oMyError.number If $err = 0 Then $err = -1 SetError($err) ; to check for after this function returns endfunc ;; End AA Functions. ; debug() (trimmed-down version) ; ; provides quick debug report in your console.. func debug($d_string, $ln=false) local $pre ; For Jump-to-Line in Notepad++ if $ln then $pre = "(" & $ln & ") " & @Tab ConsoleWrite($pre & $d_string & @CRLF) endfunc ;o) Cor

The forum offers various solutions for converting INI files and for multi-dimensional and associative arrays. But there's no topic that discusses all three at the same time. INI file: [person1] name=Mikey age=4 [person2] name=Becky age=46Needed array: [person1] => [name] = Mikey [age] = 4 [person2] => [name] = Becky [age] = 46 So is it possible? If so, can you make something like if isset($array["person2"]["name"])? Thanks!