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Zhiroc
Adept
Joined: 04 Feb 2005
Posts: 246
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 Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 5:26 pm
Suggestion: add default value to %db() function
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I find myself often doing:
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| #IF (%iskey(@x, k)) {$val = %db(@x, k)} {$val = "default"} |
or something similar. It would save time (both CPU and coding) as well as being clearer (I think) to have a default value option, much like NVL() in most SQL languages:
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| $val = %db(@x, k, "default") |
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Zugg
MASTER
Joined: 25 Sep 2000
Posts: 23379
Location: Colorado, USA
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Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 6:01 pm
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Nice idea. I'll add that to the wish list.
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Tech
GURU
Joined: 18 Oct 2000
Posts: 2733
Location: Atlanta, USA
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Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 6:20 pm
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That's a great idea. It'll probably get put in during the Database re-write.
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Asati di tempari! |
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ReedN
Wizard
Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Posts: 1279
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 6:22 pm
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I like that idea Zhiroc, I do that a lot too.
On a similar note, when doing:
$val = %db(@x, k)
I have always assumed I need to do a %iskey(@x, k) before trying to access it. Is %db(@x, k) going to return a consistant %null if "k" isn't defined in @x? That'd save me some code if I could always assume that trying to access a key that isn't there returned a known quantity. |
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Fang Xianfu
GURU
Joined: 26 Jan 2004
Posts: 5155
Location: United Kingdom
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Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 7:10 pm
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Could just use Lua instead
| val = var[key] or "default" |
;P |
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Zugg
MASTER
Joined: 25 Sep 2000
Posts: 23379
Location: Colorado, USA
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Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 8:20 pm
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| Quote: |
| Is %db(@x, k) going to return a consistant %null if "k" isn't defined in @x? |
Yes, it should. |
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Zhiroc
Adept
Joined: 04 Feb 2005
Posts: 246
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Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 8:26 pm
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| ReedN wrote: |
| I have always assumed I need to do a %iskey(@x, k) before trying to access it. Is %db(@x, k) going to return a consistant %null if "k" isn't defined in @x? That'd save me some code if I could always assume that trying to access a key that isn't there returned a known quantity. |
I believe you can count on %null(%db(...)) returning true if the key doesn't exit. However, it also returns true if the key is present, but has a blank value. Sometimes you can have code that wants to tell the difference, and in that case, using %iskey() is the only way. |
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