Challenge

[CiberTHuG]

I challenge everybody to find documentation on the Dictionary object, all its properties and methods, in VBScript at MSDN.

For those of you who are smart, you can skip this waste of time and just find me some documenation from anywhere.

<rant>Not only is VB/VBScript crappy, substandard languages that I am absolutely sick of working with, but they were documented by 3-year olds.</rant>

[punkpie_uk]

A bit annoyed at Microsoft?

I found this at MSDN http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en...c03_dictionary. Its not much but its the best thing on there.

I usuaully use w3schools.com for stuff like this. http://www.w3schools.com/asp/asp_ref_dictionary.asp

If found these exampleshttp://www.asptraining.com/learn/dictionary.asp

http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/102898-1.shtml

http://www.asptutorial.info/Dictionary.htm

Do I Win?

[CiberTHuG]

Well, thanks for playing atleast. I haven't looked the sites you provided, yet. I found what library the dictionary object is in and I'm using the autocomplete in VS to list the properties, methods, and their aurgements, so I can do work with VBScript.

But am I correct in assuming that the dictionary object has no built-in sort. Niether does an array in VBScript, does it?

So again, can I ask someone why in the hell would you use VB/VBScript for a real world application?!

And ofcourse, THERE IS NO FREAKIN' REGEX!!!!!

(hell, have the VB community probably doesn't even know what regex is)

[CiberTHuG]

I wonder what is faster..

  Dim myDict
  Set myDict = Server.CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary")

  myDict.Add("Name") = "Bob"
  myDict.Add("Mission") = "Burn"

Or...

  Dim Name
      Name = 0
  Dim Mission
      Mission = 1
  Dim myArray(2)

  myArray(Name) = "Bob"
  myArray(Mission) = "Burn"

Then you have to imagine if you were going to great a big nested structures. A dictionary of dictionaries, or an array of arrays. I have to seriously wonder if the array of arrays would consume less memory and be faster.

[JoshT]

Originally posted by CiberTHuG
And ofcourse, THERE IS NO FREAKIN' REGEX!!!!!

???

VBScript, JScript, and javascript (I think with ECMA) all have Perl-style regular expressions built in.

Function ValidateSSN(SSN)
	Dim re
	Set re = New RegExp
	re.Pattern = "^[\d]{3}-[\d]{2}-[\d]{4}$"
	
	ValidateSSN = re.Test(SSN)
	
	Set re = Nothing
End Function

[CiberTHuG]

JavaScript does, and it may be dictated by ECMA-262. If so it would imply that JScript does. I didn't know VBScript does.

This goes back to the crappy documentation issue. Does VB, or just VBScript?

I could use RegEx to find keys a little easier. I still have to loop through them, but now I don't have to compare everything.

In a slight tangent. I don't think I'm going to use the dictionary object like I thought I was. I can do all the same with an array of arrays and just use variables so I don't have to keep track of all of the array indices.

I do like the dictionary object, I just don't see the need to use it unless the keys are defined at runtime. In other words, if you say myDict.Add myKey, myValue instead of myDict.Add "myKey", myValue.

Now I have to write an array sort.

[punkpie_uk]

I didn't know about patterns in VBScript either.

Use arrays, arrays are much better. What happened to the good old days of BASIC programming?

I definatly agree that VBScript should have a sort function. Theres a couple of wasy to get around it though. You could create a empty recordset, feed the data into it and sort it. Or you could use one of the free sort algorithyms. Try QSort...

http://watson-net.com/free/asp/s_qsort.asp

[JoshT]

Originally posted by CiberTHuG
This goes back to the crappy documentation issue. Does VB, or just VBScript?

Just VBScript, and VB.NET. I'm betting you can't use Perl, but you can use Windows Scripting Host to wrap Perl scripts in a COM object, which then can be called from VBScript... Makes my life easier...

[CiberTHuG]

Nah, can't do that either. All of the code I write has to be able to be supported by monkeys who only understand VB.

I want a new job so bad.

[monte96]

It's funny reading people bash the MS documentation. That is one of the things that is really good about their dev tools. No other dev tool has even close to the level of documentation that MS's development tools do.

Just by typing in 'Dictionary' in MSDN I get:

Visual Basic Scripting Edition Language Reference

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dictionary
Object that stores data key, item pairs.

Remarks
A Dictionary object is the equivalent of a PERL associative array. Items, which can be any form of data, are stored in the array. Each item is associated with a unique key. The key is used to retrieve an individual item and is usually a integer or a string, but can be anything except an array.

The following code illustrates how to create a Dictionary object:

Dim d ' Create a variable.
Set d = CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary")
d.Add "a", "Athens" ' Add some keys and items.
d.Add "b", "Belgrade"
d.Add "c", "Cairo"
...
Properties
CompareMode Property | Count Property | Item Property | Key Property

Methods
Add Method (Dictionary) | Exists Method | Items Method | Keys Method | Remove Method | RemoveAll Method

See Also
FileSystemObject Object | TextStream Object


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
©2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

[CiberTHuG]

Sorry, Perl documentation is by far the best I have ever seen for any language. The Perl community is just such a better community, and the Camel book rocks.

But typing "visual basic scripting dictionary" at MSDN I get lots of crap, including the Dictionary object for Office 2000 and .NET.

If I actually go to msdn.microsoft.com/scripting and drill into "VBScript Documentation", "VBScript Langugae Reference", "Objects and Collections" I get crap.

Oooo.. there is the RexEx object. Cool. But no dictionary!!!

Again, VB doco sucks. I'm glad somebody can find something there, but on the whole, divining rods are easier.

[punkpie_uk]

I like the online PHP docs, but your right, the Perl docs are excellent