Re: [Vala] A few questions

[Jamie McCracken <jamie mccrack googlemail com>]

On Mon, 2009-11-30 at 13:24 -0500, Hugo Florentino wrote:
> Abderrahim Kitouni wrote:
>
> > > [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)
>
> As a matter of fact, initially I was going to use values from 13
> trought 19 to better illustrate my concern, but ultimately decided not
> to, to avoid people from asking why would I need to do such a thing.
> However, if according to the official documentation it is valid to
> declare a non-zero starting array like this:
>
> const int_array : array of int = {1, 2, 3}
>
> Then it _should_ be equally possible to declare an array using a
> range, because in this example only 3 values were needed, but what if
> several values are needed and the array must start from an arbitrary
> number other than zero?
> Since this functionality is not currently present in Genie (and
> presumably Vala), I think implementing it could be quite useful to
> prevent unnecessarily complex workarounds.
> Once implemented, it could obviously be used in all kinds of useful
> stuff, like cases or simple comparisons.
>
> Jürg, Pleeeeaaaase??? (pretend I am using the style of Roger Rabbit)

Ranges is something I would like very much to add to Genie

I believe Jurg said he would support ranges at some point. Dont expect
too many vala features prior to version 1.0 though  as his time will no
doubt be spent fixing bugs




> > > 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
>
> That's odd, I tried to compile a similar example from Windows and the
> compiler raised a syntax error, I was using Vala 0.78
> Perhaps it's a line termination issue, I cannot check right now
> because I am at work. Can anyone else check if this is a error of the
> Windows build?

I dont use windows so cannot say but valac syntax support should be
identical. I am also thinking of allowing automatic line continuations
if last character of a line is a comma (without need of a backslash) in
future versions of Genie

jamie