Mystery with arrays (lost key)

Robert Brenstein rjb at rz.uni-potsdam.de
Wed Apr 10 05:29:01 EDT 2002


>For me, the use of non-quoted literals is more the source of 
>confusion than any other factor. If they weren't allowed, then MC 
>would require the above lines in question to look like this:
>>      put  1 into test2
>>      put 55 into  GrandTotals["test1"]
>>      put 66 into GrandTotals[test2]
>>      put 22 into  GrandTotals["test3"]
>
>Then it would be explicit and clear why keys(GrandTotals) are what 
>they are above:
>>    1        -- (value of 'test2' variable, used as a key)
>>    test1    -- ("test1" string)
>>    test3    -- ("test3" string)
>
>I believe MC's assumption about 'test1' and 'test3' being char 
>strings was meant to make life easier for us. In this case, however, 
>MC's ease-of-use string-handling seems to be giving us enough rope 
>to hang ourselves!
>

As far as I know, the use of non-quoted literals comes from HyperTalk 
and Scott strongly recommends to always quote literals. It is 
definitely a cleaner way to code and eliminates any ambiguities.

Robert



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