Hi,
When you have a set of values of a particular type, you will often want to keep them in an Array.
They are then much easier to access and update as the program runs.
Basic has a neat way of doing this:
openconsole
cls
' Basic Clarity 3 ..
' Initialising Arrays .
autodefine "off"
def i,a[4] as int
def s[4] as string
a[0] = 0,2,4,6
s[0] = "","dog","fish","bird"
for i = 0 to 3: print "Array a[ ",i,"] is ",a[i]: next i
print
for i = 0 to 3: print "Array s[ ",i,"] is ",s[i]: next i
do:until inkey$<>""
closeconsole
end
Other languages often require you to set each element separately as in:
a[0] = 0
a[1] = 2
a[2] = 4
a[3] = 6
If you only have a few values, the separate statement method is no problem, but if you have maybe 50 or more, it can become a bit of a chore.
That is when the list method is useful and neater.
You don't even have to fully define the starting element as a[0] - you can just use a = 0,2,4,6.
But for consistency, I prefer to specifically define the loading start point as a[0] in this case.
The reason being, you may want to start loading another array from some other array element, as in:
b[10] = 32,33,34,35,36 which will load elements 10 to 14 of array b[ ].
The string array example is very useful if you have a lot of descriptions to store.
The handling of arrays in Basic is neat and provides a great tool in many programs.
best wishes, :)
Graham