generating variable names -- noob alert

[Rhiannon Arkin]

hi

Ok. this is embarrasing but i can't figure out how to do this:

 

i have 3 global lists i want to add information to (quest1, quest2, quest3)

looks like a job for a loop,

but 

string nameOfList = "quest"+((string)counter) is resulting in  "quest1" . fine. 

now this is the name for the list i want to use BUT

l = llGetListLength(nameOfList) .... doesn't work as it projects the content of nameOfList and not the list called nameOfList.

and the same problem on the other side of the =

nameOfList += "blabla" ;

clearly doesn't work because nameOfList is not the list itself but only it's name in form of a string variable. 

I couldn't find an example anywhere so I have to ask here, how can I generate the names of existing lists so i can use them in all sorts of loops? 

any thoughts about this ??

thanks

R.

 

 

[Jenny Siddeley]

As you've found out, the name of a variable of any kind can't be a variable itself.

To create a list, just type :

list MyList = [];

Of course, you can replace MyList by anything you want when writing your script but that name can't be a string variable.

[Innula Zenovka]

I don't really understand the question because the logic of your script isn't entirely clear from the description you give.

On the face of it, it looks as if your problem can be solved by something like 

		if(1 == counter){			quest1 +=[strInput];		}		else if (2 == counter){			quest2 +=[strInput];		}		else if (3 == counter){			quest3 +=[strInput];		}

but I suspect there is  more to the problem than is apparent from what you've said.

Have you considered using a single, strided, list?   

 

[Xiija]

you could try json and use json objects or json arrays...

something like....

string info;
string name;
string GuestMain;

key avKey;

init()
{     
         info = llList2Json (JSON_OBJECT, [
         "AVkey", JSON_NULL ] );
         GuestMain = llList2Json( JSON_OBJECT, [] );
      
}

 

and somewhere in your code have something like...

 name = llDetectedName(0); // (or guest1, guest2, etc)

 avKey = llDetectedKey(0); // or whatever...

if (llJsonGetValue (GuestMain, [name] ) == JSON_INVALID)
                  {  
                     GuestMain = llJsonSetValue (GuestMain, [name], info);
                     GuestMain = llJsonSetValue (GuestMain, [name,  "AVkey"], avKey);                    
                  }

list details =  llJson2List ( GuestMain );

details = llList2ListStrided(details,0,-1,2);  // gives the strided list of names

 

OR just put all the info in a regular strided list...

list GuestMain;

GuestMain += "guest1";

GuestMain += "key1";

GuestMain += "guest2";

GuestMain += "key2";

 

etc etc

[Rhiannon Arkin]

hi

yes you understood perfectly,  that's what I'm after. I guess i was looking for a way of doing this with one loop instead of 3 if's. Even more generic so that even the quest1,2,3 are result of a formula. 

I am looking into stridend lists too. 

 

 

[Innula Zenovka]

What are you trying to do with the three lists?   Read one item in turn from each list until you've read through them, or add data to each of  them or what?   It's not at all clear from the example you gave.

 

 

[Qie Niangao]

---

Rhiannon Arkin wrote:

Even more generic so that even the quest1,2,3 are result of a formula. 

I am looking into stridend lists too.  

---

If the three lists represent a list of triples (that is, the k-th element of quest1 corresponds to the k-th elements of quest2 and quest3 such that you'll iterate through those lists in lockstep) then a 3-strided list is probably the best you can do. That nicely generalizes to n-strided lists for any n-tuples. (If the contents are only numbers, artificially representing them as vectors or rotations is a storage efficiency hack.)

The practice of referencing variable names as data is much more common in interpreted languages because compilers usually strip out variable names after resolving references to them in the code. In contrast, an intrepreter can "evaluate" data at runtime to resolve symbols as variables, function names, and even in some "dynamic" languages whole new data types.

In LSL, the "general" ways of doing such things make the symbol strictly data instead of a variable name. There are all sorts of ways to do that. JSON is one way. Alternatively, scripts can maintain a list of symbols, offsets, and perhaps lengths, as a dynamic index into a long flat list of values.

The Key-Value Pair structure of Experience persistent store is another relevant representation for scripts that can use Experiences. It lets a script use a "Key" symbol to reference arbitrarily structured Values, so the "Key" is conceptually similar to a variable name symbol -- but access is asynchronous, in exchange for practically unlimited capacity.

[Rhiannon Arkin]

in essence I'm just storing a list of questions in each of the lists. the questions come from three notecards. 

I want to use globals because reading questions from notecards seems to lag more. 

So the basic solution of usign 'if' for the three cases is working fine. 

I find the suggested json lists interesting, but need to read into this. as right now i have no idea what the json thing really is. 

 

[Rhiannon Arkin]

thanks for the indepth explaination. It sounds like that's where I should go in future versions of my situation. I'll read more into the json thing, als strided lists sound exactly applicable to my situation. 

thanks for the feedback