left-square-bracketright-square-bracket

Type

keyword

Summary

The square bracket characters [ ] surround the element name in an array reference.

Syntax

[]

Description

Use square brackets [ ] to specify which element in an array you are referring to.

You access an element of an array by using the name of the array, along with the key in square brackets:

    put \"A\" into myList[\"firstLetter\"]
    put \"B\" into myList[\"secondLetter\"]
    put \"C\" into myList[\"thirdLetter\"]
    get myList[\"secondLetter\"] -- yields \"B\"

Square brackets must be used in pairs, each [ with a matching ]. Using a single square bracket does not cause an error, but the bracket is interpreted as part of the variable name, rather than as the marker for the key of an array reference.

note

Arrays in LiveCode are associative (also known as hash tables). This means that when an array element is accessed using square bracket notation, the value in between the brackets is used to "look up" the element, and is not a numeric index as in C, Pascal and other languages. Of course it is still possible to use numbers as array keys, but LiveCode internally converts these to strings before retrieving the array elements.

Examples

put thisValue into myArray["someKey"]

if myArray["someOtherKey"] is "A" then beep

Related

command: split

function: arrayEncode

glossary: array, variable, error, key

keyword: element

operator: left-round-bracketright-round-bracket

Compatibility and Support

Introduced

LiveCode 1.0

OS

mac

windows

linux

ios

android

Platforms

desktop

server

mobile