Re: [Vala] A few questions

[Abderrahim Kitouni <a kitouni gmail com>]

Hi,

2009/11/30 Hugo Florentino <latinmidget gmail com>:
> Hello,
>
> I have recently found Vala/Genie, and I think this is a very interesting
> project. Although I have learned some Java and can more or less understand
> Vala, I find Genie more attractive because the syntax is much simpler and
> IMHO has some similarity with Delphi, which is what I have used for my few
> little programs.
>
> Anyway, I have some doubts I would like to clear (and please forgive any
> possible stupidity, I am not an experienced programmer).
>
> As the documentation on Genie is still incomplete, I tried to do something
> like this (without success):
>
> [indent=2]
> const MAXVALUE: int = 50
> init
>  myarray : array of int = {1..MAXVALUE}
>
> Isn't there a similar way to declare an array using only minimum and maximum
> values?
No, arrays indices always start from 0, so you just pass the length, e.g.
myarray : array of int = new array of int [50]
(I hope you don't mean the array should contain elements from 1 to 50)

> This way of using two values for declaring a range is also quite useful for
> other things, like cases:
>
> case a
>  when 1..100
>    print "first hundred"
>  when 101..200
>    print "second hundred"
>
> But I couldn't find such a thing in the available documentation. If there is
> a way, please provide an example, otherwise I would suggest to implement it.
No, there is no such thing.

> Also, while looking for genie-related stuff, it seems you can use the
> backslash to split lines (at least that's what I see in
> valageniescanner.vala, starting from line 485), however I have tried using
> it (with different indentations) without success. Could anyone post a
> snippet of how to use it, for example to pass parameters to a function, each
> in a separate line?
[indent=2]
init
  string.join (",",    \
               "item1", \
               "item2")

the backslash must be the last character on the line
> One last thing: is there a shuffle method for collections? I haven't been
> able to find it.
I don't think so
> Regards, Hugo
>
> PS I placed different doubts in the same message because I didn't see any
> rule to post each question separatedly when subcribing to the list. Let me
> know if it is your policy to separate threads by topic.
That's fine, it is however a good idea to put genie somewhere in the
subject if you're talking about genie ;-)

HTH,
Abderrahim