Xbasic

Collections

Description

A collection is an Xbasic datatype, similar to an array, but whose elements are referenced with a "key" rather than an index. A key is a value (character, numeric or date) that uniquely identifies an element in a collection.

For example, in the following collection, the key BB refers to the element Bryan Boyd.

For example, say that the collection shown below was called mycollection. The command: mycollection.GET("BB") refers to the collection element Bryan Boyd.

Key: Data
"FJ": "Fred Jones"
"BB": "Bryan Boyd"
"KL": "Kim Lee"
"KB": "Karen Boyd"
"EL": "Erica Loyd"

By contrast, in an array, elements are referred to by index number. For example, say that the array shown below was called " myarray ". The command: myarray2 refers to the 2 nd array element.

Index: Data
1: "Fred Jones"
2: "Bryan Boyd"
3: "Kim Lee"
4: "Karen Boyd"
5: "Erica Loyd"

You do not have to declare the size of a collection in advance. The following command defines a collection. There is no maximum number of entries in the collection (other than limits set by available memory).

dim mycollection as U