[Gambas-user] An other problem with object oriented approach.

[Werner]

Jussi Lahtinen wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I'm converting Vb6 project to Gambas.
> And because Gambas doesn't have UDT/structures, I have to rethink some
> of the code (not necessary bad thing).
> I'm converting some parts of the code to object oriented way.
> But I run into some problems with it.
> I have module which contains mainly global arrays and global UDT arrays.
> That module describe items, every item is identified by index number.
> Like this (vb6 code):
> Global Alive(Max_Number_Of_Items)  as boolean
>
> So if I want to know if item 2 is alive, I'll write:
> IF Alive[2] = TRUE THEN
>
> Problem is in identification, items have to know who is who.
> Old array based code is something like this:
>
> IF Alive[Who] = TRUE THEN
> ComWith = CommunicateWith[Who]
>   IF Alive[ComWith] = TRUE THEN
>   WhereX[ComWith] = ...
>   WhereY[ComWith] = ...
>     ...
>
> And when I want to save/load items to/from file, I use Id <--> Index
> translation function which translates CommunicateWith array with ID
> array.
> But that is way too slow to use at normal execution, it is useful only
> on file operations.
> If I convert these items to objects, there is not much point to use
> Alive array (etc.), I'll just remove dead items and add new one only
> when needed. But that creates problem with identification, since I
> can't use index numbers anymore!
> And looping every item to see if it have right Id number (that matches
> to CommunicateWith[WhoEverAsk]) is way too slow (like in
> Id <--> Index translation function).
> Slow because there are many(!) items, and every item should be checked
> against every item!
>
> So, any ideas how to implement fast identification between objects?
> Other words, how to translate Id to Index without looping?
>
> I'm trying to learn object oriented style and right now it's very
> difficult to stretch my brains around it...
>
>
> Jussi
>   
If there is anything unique in your items you could use a collection
instead of an array and use the unique part as a key.
Werner