Split and Parse

[marcuslee]

I've been reading about these two keywords in the help file. There are differences in the descriptions, but it seems that the basic functionality is the same: Put a long string with delimiters into an array.

What are the differences (besides that Parse has more functionality with the matrix bit)?

What circumstances would require one over the other?




Mark

[marcuslee]

I've been playing around with INI files. I believe the following code demonstrates that on a simple level, Split and Parse can be used in the same way.



Uses "INI"

Dim x, n As String
Dim z(10), d(10) As String
Dim y,v,b As Byte
Dim iFile As String = APP_ScriptPath + "file.ini"

INI_SetKey(iFile, "1", "1", "23|26|65|76|87|43|21|35|43|99")
x = INI_GetKey(iFile, "1", "1")

y = Parse(x,z,"|")
v = Split(x,"|",d)

n = d(3) + z(2)

b = MsgBox (0,n)


Which reminds me of another observation I would like to make that doesn't have anything to do with this thread ... so I will post elsewhere.


Mark

[ReneMiner]

It would be interesting to know if there is some possibility to use the power of Parse-functions to get a certain element/line of some text-string.

Currently I know only how to Parse one string into a lot of small pieces seperated by some delimiter as $CRLF for example. But it always (?) creates/redims some array which I have to supply & dim in advance although sometimes I only need a certain element of that array.


Example:

I have some String sFileList consists of Filenames, maybe 2500 all in one string, delimited by $CRLF.

Now to access filename(333) I have to create some dynamic string array which gets redim'med by the parse-function once, thereafter I have to get element (filename) 333 by indexing and assigning it and drop the rest of parsed string-array thereafter to garbage again since I'm only interested in filename #333 and used up lots of unnecessary time for redim & reordering the memory .

Now I think about something like:


String myFilename = ParseElement$(sFileList, 333, $CRLF)

which will just pick out and assign string-element 333 (or "" if element 333 not available) to myFilename without the need to create/redim additional variables.

Is there already some smart way to do so?

[ErosOlmi]

If I understand well what you need, PARSE$ does what you need: http://www.thinbasic.com/public/products/thinBasic/help/html/index.html?parse$.htm



String myFilename = Parse$(sFileList, $CRLF, 333)


The only problem with PARSE$ is that it always parse the string so it is quite inefficient to repeatedly use PARSE$ especially when the string is quite big.
In those cases, it is better to use PARSE (without $ sign) and create an array. But if you need to use it once in a while, no problem.

Ciao
Eros

[ReneMiner]

OK, thanks. Now I can see the difference between Parse and Parse$ :)