Name
dict_to_vector — Returns a get_keyword style vector of all items stored in the given dictionary.
Synopsis
vector
dict_to_vector
(
|
inout dict dictionary , |
in
destructive
any
); |
Description
The function returns an array of all data stored in the given dictionary, every pair is represented as two consecutive element of the resulting array.
Thus the dictionary of N pairs is converted into a vector of length 2N where keys are at positions 0, 2, 4, ..., 2N-1
and corresponding dependent data are at positions 1, 3, 5, ..., 2N.
If keys are all scalars of same type then get_keyword
function can be used to search in the resulting array.
If the destructive
parameter is 1 or 2 then the function may avoid copying of keys and values to the resulting array
by moving them out from the dictionary. This is faster but the dictionary will become empty at the end of operation.
The destructive
parameter equal to 1 does not have any effect if the dictionary is used as a value of more than one variable.
Thus it is safe to make this parameter equal to 1 as soon as the variable passed to the function as dict
is no longer in use after
the function call and there's no need to inspect the whole program to check if other variables may be affected.
The parameter equal to 2 ignores the presence of multiple variables so the operation may cause unexpected results in other fragments of code that share the dictionary.
Parameters
dict
The dictionary to scan.
destructive
Flag that indicates whether the dictionary can be cleaned during the operation (0 = never clean, 1 = only if there is no other variables, 2 = clean unconditionally).
Return Types
The function returns a vector of even length.